Bradley Family Blog

Goodbye Blog

2009-10-15T22:05:00.000-07:00

This blog will be discontinued. We may start a new one somewhere else some time, I'll let you know.

Selective Memories

2009-10-14T15:05:00.001-07:00

Wow, I had no idea my little episode of verbal diarrhea would get such positive response. Thank you everyone for reaching out with love and support. I didn't even know that many of you still followed our little family blog. To my dear friend whose comment I had to delete, thank you, you made my day :-). I hope hearing the other side of things has provided some insight into your own marriages and lives. I know some of you thought Chris and I were Utah's Golden Couple and I'm sorry to have let you down, but I guess we all have flaws. Some of us just hide it better than others. If any of you want to find out what happens next in the Happily Ever After Tale of Professor Man Candy and Mormon Ex-Housewife, e-mail me. We'll probably start blogging soon.

Much love,

Christine Hendricks

PS I truly harbor no bitter feelings toward the LDS church. I shared truly positive experiences and members of the church always made me feel welcome and loved.

Mmmmmmmm, Chocolate

2009-10-04T17:33:00.001-07:00

Have you ever been sitting around on a Sunday morning when suddenly, out of the blue, something totally wonderful happens? Like maybe your Grandpa starts making brownies and when he's done he lets you lick the mixing spoon? Then maybe the chocolatey flavor is so intense that you try to absorb it through the skin of your face. It's pretty much the best thing that ever happened to you in your whole life. You probably spend half an hour trying to glean every bit of chocolate off of that thing. It gets even better when your Dad decides it's the funniest thing he's ever seen and gets pictures and puts them on the family blog so that the whole world can see how much fun you had eating brownie batter.

Yeah, it's probably the best thing that has ever happened.

And the winner is... Squirt!

2009-09-27T11:31:00.000-07:00

The many long and hard days of remembering to feed the fish have finally paid off for Laine, Eve, and James. After much deliberation and lots of excited yelling about which pet would be the best, with a few vetoes by Grandma, the three children decided to get a water turtle for a pet. We did a little reading and looking around at the pet store and ended up deciding on a red-eared slider that the children have named Squirt. He's active and interesting, eats little goldfish, and the kids are having a ball with him so far. We set up his aquarium with a basking rock for him to rest on with a basking light for him to rest under, a castle for the fish to live in, and an industrial strength aquarium filter so the tank would always smell fresh and clean. Red-eared sliders start off pretty small, a juvenile like Squirt has a shell about four inches long, but they can grow up to be over a foot long. They live about 50 years if properly cared for, so this is looking like a pet for the long haul.

The Pet Situation

2009-09-20T17:12:00.001-07:00

As some of you may recall, several months ago we added a new family member in the person of a small betta fish named Bluetail. The kids really wanted a dog, but I figured that was something they probably ought to work up to from something smaller, so we ended up making a deal: if the kids could remember to feed the fish every day for two months, we would get a new, bigger pet. Well, after a few false starts, we're just a few days away from the landmark day of two months of perfect pet-keeping. Deciding on what the next pet will be has been quite a project in itself, we've made a few rounds to various pet stores and here are the lists that the kids came up with.

This first one was their first crack at it a few weeks ago, it features (for those having trouble reading the picture, man I love kid spelling):
GOLDFISH
HAMSTER
GUINEAPIGVPLL
CARNARY
eeL
TURTUL
FROQ
GUPPY
BLACKMOLLY
BUNNY.P

They put together the second list after spending half the day on Saturday visiting some more pet stores. For the picture reading impaired:
Mice.v
HAMsteR.v
TURtule.vLW
Rabits
Ginuqig
fi*sh
blakmoley
GuPey
Goldfir*sh
eel
Grble
rat
Lisrd
S*naKe
Chranchla
PiG
Knarey
Parakeyt

I'm quietly trying to steer them towards a nice, low-maintenance aquarium with a mess of little feeder fish and a swimming turtle, but I'm pretty much ok with any of the stuff on the list, except maybe the Chranchla (tarantula), since those can be poisonous and I don't think they'd be very good for a two-year-old. I'm also trying to play down the small, quick things that can escape from stubby pet owners that have the reflexes of a three toed sloth on valium, but I figure we can have those as long as we set up a child proof cage so they can't let 'em out without adult supervision.

Fairies and Reading and School, Oh My!

2009-09-13T13:40:00.001-07:00

For those who have never had a chance to witness my girls voracious reading habits, you should probably know that for a four and a six year old these girls are serious readers. Laine devoured the first sixteen Magic Tree House books and Eve followed close behind. Their new favorite reading materials are the million and one fairy books written by a group of authors that all share the pseudonym of Daisy Meadows. The fairy books consist of a bunch of series, each with seven books, each featuring a different set of fairies. Eve is currently loving the weather fairies while Laine chomps through the rainbow fairies. I think they're having a contest for who can finish first, but I can never quite figure out the rules of the competition. As far as I can tell, the winner get the first go at the dance fairies series, but I could be wrong, it's hard to tell, the girls talk fast and laugh a lot when I try to understand the game.

James on the other hand is pretty easy to figure out. He's excited to be a school boy one day and get to go to school like his sisters. Some days he likes to borrow Eve's backpack, put it on upside down, and walk around the house announcing that he's going to school. He's so cute it's unbelievable. He also loves being turned upside down and tickled, but I figure that's pretty standard for age two.

I had my birthday yesterday, we celebrated by going to the state fair and seeing a bunch of animals and some art and riding some of the carnival rides there. The girls had a ball at the photography exhibit doing the photo scavenger hunt, they found all the pictures on the list except for the dog with the hat. They also thought seeing the sheep get sheared was pretty cool. One of the weird challenges of being a single parent is that you don't automatically have someone to take the kids to get you a present using your own money anymore. Took me a while to figure out what to do, but I ended up slipping my mom some cash and telling her to take the kids shopping. That ended up pretty well, they got to go get some presents for Daddy and I got some shirts that don't fit and a very delicious chocolate cake. All in all it was a pretty good day.

School, trips, and a new routine

2009-09-06T12:15:00.000-07:00

The kids finished up their second week of school on Friday, and the adjustment to the new flow of life is well underway. The three little monkeys wake up each morning to grab some breakfast and try to sneak in a few cartoons while try to sneak in some work before the day gets going. Laine heads to school at 8:20, most days I'm able to walk along with her up to H. R. Driggs Elementary. The morning walk is nice, all of the kids in the neighborhood walk to school so it's like a little parade to school every day. Then it's time to get some work done, conference calls or research or putting together documents for my current project. At noon it's time to switch gears again and get Eve off to preschool and James down for his nap. A few more hours of work to hopefully finish my work day (so I don't have to get back to the grind after the kids go to bed) then it's off to pick Eve up then take Laine to Kung Fu, take Eve to dance lessons (starting this Thursday, she's so excited), run to the bank, pick them up from lessons, shop for food, buy more socks (how do they always lose their socks?), make dinner (something awesome!), feed the kids, go over homework, get teeth brushed, tuck them in with books for our new bedtime reading routine, say prayers, read scriptures, then make up a new and original bedtime story on the fly from stuff they choose, hugs and kisses, lights out, then head upstairs and blow off some steam (so I can do the whole thing again tomorrow). How do single parents who don't have awesome families to help out survive this?

Then of course it's time to start prepping things out for my next trip to the East Coast for business. It's been pretty steady at a three-day trip (three full days there, which means four nights away) once a month, sometimes with more notice than other times. I only had a week's notice on this last one, and I found out that it only takes eight adult relatives in a coordinated schedule to replace one superdad. Pretty good on their part, I would have thought it would take at least ten of 'em. Seriously, how do single parents who don't have awesome families to help out survive this? On the upside I get my airline silver medallion next trip, that's 25,000 miles I'll have flown and now I won't have to wait as long in the security line every time.

Laine seems to be loving her first grade class, Eve has no complaints about preschool, and James is still the king of afternoon naps. Thanks to everyone who helps so much, we really couldn't do this without you.

It's Starting Again

2009-08-23T17:40:00.000-07:00

The potty training has commenced in earnest now that the boy understands he get M&M's every time he successfully makes a deposit in his little froggy potty. So far he's managed to get three pees in the thing, still no solids but we're making progress. His sisters have figured out a method of sitting him down and making him drink a bunch of water to make him go, which seems to get results (and therefore candy), but I'm not sure if it addresses the fundamental issue of recognizing when you gotta go and getting to the potty in time. We'll keep reinforcing and rewarding and hopefully he'll get motivated to pay attention to his little bladder.

In other news this week we got a crate of fresh peaches off of Emo's peach tree. We've had em fresh and raw, in crepes, in cobbler, and in peaches and cream. Thanks Emo, they've been great.

In case you didn't know...

2009-08-16T11:44:00.000-07:00

There are a few things you should be aware of about the boys in the family. The first thing you should know is that I am the best cook ever. In case you don't believe that, Eve went ahead and made a sign for us to put up in the kitchen to let everyone know.

The second thing you should probably be aware of is that James happens to be the cutest sleeper in the world. He's a very busy little guy and sometimes he just gets so tired he needs to sack out on the couch with a pillow for a blanket.

The third thing you should know is that James at age two knows more about picking up girls than most guys learn in a lifetime. Check the video, you'll see him captivate three older women using nothing more than his charm and acrobatic abilities.

The Divorce

2009-08-09T07:03:00.000-07:00

This weekend we finally clued in the children to what we had decided on months ago. We're getting a divorce. This probably doesn't come as much of a surprise to most of the people who read this, and for those that we didn't tell personally, sorry, it's tough to spread the word on something like this without the kids finding out and we wanted to make sure they heard it from us first.

We picked up Christine at the airport and took the kids out for a picnic at the park. We told them we were getting a divorce. Laine started crying immediately, Eve saw that and started crying too. James just kept grinning, he's a little bit little to understand what's going on. We explained to the children that we would both always love them, and that it wasn't their fault, and that everything would turn out ok in the end. Eve cheered up after about a minute, then went off to climb the monkey cage. James scampered after her, still grinning. Laine asked a few questions and cried some more, we held her and answered the best we could. After a few minutes, Laine seemed to decide things were going to be ok, and her tears dried up and she went off to play with Eve and James.

I'm sure there will be more tears in the days ahead, but they seem to be taking it very well so far.

Anyway, the legal gears are churning, everything is agreed on, paperwork is done; we don't know when we'll be official, probably sometime in September. Thank you to everyone who has been so supportive to both of us and to the children.

Uncle Jim and Aunt Shauna

2009-08-02T16:33:00.000-07:00

Warning, Disclaimer, and Eye-Damage Prevention:

Included within the following photographs are images that may stun, shock, or offend some viewers. If the sight of a large, hairy man with no shirt on is unappealing to you in any way, please close your browser now to avoid potential nausea, upset stomach, gag responses, or other complications.

For real, it's me in swim trunks, don't hurt yourself, close the page now.

Still here?

OK, here's the post:

This Saturday we had the good fortune to be invited up to my Uncle Jim and Aunt Shauna's place. For those not close with the Bradley clan, Jim and Shauna live up in the mountains about a bazillion miles from civilization. This is a very good thing. They have all the great stuff up there that us city dwellers miss out on, horses, cows, swimming holes, rivers in their backyard, peace and quiet, and old fashioned good clean fun (which is a weird name for it, cause it usually involves getting dirty).

It's about an hour out of Salt Lake and we managed to make the drive with only one or two "Are we there yet?"s. Only got lost twice, once because the streets stopped having street signs, once because the houses stopped having numbers. It's rough finding something that's not on a neatly numbered grid, sometimes I forget how nice it is to live in a city that looks like my old geometry homework. We arrived to meet the two friendliest dogs on the planet, which didn't stop the kids from freaking out for a few minutes before getting brave enough to stand on the ground while the dogs were with sniffing distance. Jim and Shauna greeted us next, they didn't sniff and lick as much but they were at least as friendly as the pair of labs playing on their front porch.

I'd like to pretend I don't brag much, but if you're reading this you probably know better than that by now. This time I'm serious though, I have the best Aunts and Uncles on the planet. Jim and Shauna are a great example of why I can say that with such confidence. If you ever have the opportinity to meet them you should definitely take it, cause they're straight up great people.

The first activity up there was catching a horse, followed by grooming the horse, then riding the horse. All three little buddies were brave as could be and hopped right up on ol' Cactus's back for some trots around the arena. I even gave it a go. Cactus was a good sport and didn't kick any of us.

After the horseback riding, we were hot and dusty, so we changed into our swimwear and headed over to a real old-fashioned swimming hole. Well, mostly old-fashioned anyway. The folks around had dammed up a spot on the river big enough to be a pool and had it all set up with some stairs going down into the water, canoes, little inflatable rafts, deck chairs, and tables with big umbrellas in case you wanted to sit in the shade. The kids had a ball there, swimming, wading, boating, and sunning. James found his new favorite thing in the world, a green plastic canoe paddle. I haven't seen him that fascinated by anything in a long time. He didn't really want to do anything with it, he just loved carrying it around and stirring the water with it a little bit.

After the swimming hole we headed back to Jim and Shauna's house where they grilled us up an awesome dinner and the kids played until they were about half past exhausted. We had early church in the morning, so we headed out with some happy good-byes to the people and the dogs and made our way along the long gravel road back to the highway then back to the strange land of cell phones and asphalt we call home.

Thanks Jim and Shauna for a really truly great day.

One More Month Till School

2009-07-26T11:56:00.000-07:00

Another week has flown by at the Bradley household. I spent half the week in Virginia on business, which the kids didn't seem to mind because it meant they got to have another fun slumber party over at Hamoni's house. They were especially glad about that since their Pemo is back in town and living over there these days. The girls had a ball and I suspect James had so much fun he didn't sleep at all, he was a very tired boy when he got back in any case. The girls are still enjoying their summer routine of playdates with their cousins and long happy hours of reading in the hammock or playing at the pool.

Here are the kids piled up on the chair in the front room:

And James likes to carry books and sometimes pretend to read them.

They're about the happiest little monkeys I know, and I love that I have a job that allows me to spend so much time with them. I am looking forward to the start of school again next month, not that I don't love every minute with my little buddies, but it will make my life quite a bit simpler to have two of them off learning things for a good chunk of the day. Laine will be starting first grade and Eve will go back to Challenger for a daily afternoon serving of pre-K goodness.

James Can Practically Almost Nearly Read Sort Of

2009-07-19T15:12:00.000-07:00

The little guy is starting on his letters. He calls A's E's, and R's Rrrrrrrrr's, but he's most of the way there in terms of knowing his ABC's. We're working the ol' flashcard routine with him, we expect full literacy in a week or two.

The girls continue their ongoing quest to get a Master's equivalent in English Literature before they hit puberty. Their latest activity to this end is the addition of Hammock Reading to their daily routine. Hammock Reading replaces the old boring quiet reading time that took up the time slot right after lunch. Hammock Reading is a lot like quiet reading time, but instead of being in bed, it's in the hammock outside and instead of getting distracted by giggling at each others' jokes, they get distracted by tickling each other until giggles break out on all sides. They do manage to get quite a bit of actual reading in despite all the clowning. Eve is quickly making her way through the chapter book version of Finding Nemo, and Laine is still chewing her way through her first 200+ page book, The Model President (with lots of breaks to speed read through Dr. Seusses and little Disney story books).

More Summer Fun

2009-07-12T16:25:00.000-07:00

So earlier this year my oldest brother Josh decided that his kids had outgrown the small trampoline they had and picked them up a full sized on. Following Bradley tradition, hand-me-downs got passed along to the next available brother and we ended up with their old tramp in the backyard. It's the perfect size for Laine, Eve, and James; big enough they can all jump on it, but small enough that even the stubby little man can climb onto it without help. As a plus, if the kids ever fall off I don't have to worry about broken limbs.

So if you've ever been a kid and had a trampoline in the summer time, you've probably experienced the wonders of the Sprinkle-Tramp. This summer is the first time the kids have had a chance to enjoy this splashtastic wonder. For those that grew up without fun, you take a sprinkler, run it right under the middle of the trampoline, then turn it on full blast. The resultant water spray wets the tramp so that with every bounce all the jumpers get soaked. When you're two, four, or six years old, there's not much in the world that's more fun.

The girls wrapped up their soccer season this week, and were ecstatic with their participation trophies. Laine wants to do another season just for the trophy. I think Eve might be ready to move on to something else. We've been talking about getting back into dance classes, we'll look into that this week. There's a new dance school just a couple blocks from home that we might check out. The girls are also interested in taking tumbling, so since there's a tumbling place right next to the nearby dance school, they may get their wish.

Happy Fireworks Day

2009-07-05T12:39:00.000-07:00

We had a great 4th of July this year. The kids told me (about a dozen times) that it was the best 4th of July ever. The morning started with a neighborhood parade, with Laine riding a flag-waving bicicle and Eve marching with some All-American cheerleader pom-poms. Little James was supposed to march with his revolutionary war style hat and drum, but at the last minute he decided he didn't want to carry those so he got to be the little red, white and blue baseball player instead.

After the long march all the way around the block, there was a potluck neighborhood breakfast featuring chocolate milk, donuts, breads, and some yummy breakfast casseroles (gotta learn how to make those). Then it was time for games with all the little kids rushing to haul water in leaky cups from one bucket to another in a big wet relay race.

We went home after the neighborhood festivities to have a little more fun of our own. Some smoke bombs, pop-its, and growing glow-snakes got the kids all fired up for more pyrotechnics later in the day. Some quiet time relaxing, eating lunch, and watching a few cartoons fixed up our fatigue from the parade. Grandpa made some awesome home-made ice cream and some babyback ribs (gotta learn how to make those). We had Great-Grandma and Great-Grandpa Bradley over for dinner.

After dinner, when the sun finally went down, Uncle Josh and Aunt Sarah came over with cousins Jacob and Andrew who helped us light up a great little firework show. Uncle Paul and I clustered up some ground bloom flowers, the kids loved waving their sparklers, and the sparkshowers provided some oohs and aahs, mostly from Grandma.

I'm not sure what's up with Eve and the bike helmet, I think she just was jealous cause her cousins had hats so she grabbed the nearest thing that would fit on her head.

In other news lately, the girls are both loving soccer and Laine earned her first Certificate of Achievement in Kung Fu (for a 6 strike combo, watch out). Laine also has a serious crush on her school friend named David who happens to take Kung Fu with her, he seems like a nice boy so maybe I won't have to scare him away yet. James continues to be the cutest two-year-old on record, Eve still sings about how lovely she is, and I'm trooping along with work and parenting. Feel free to nominate me for Father of the Year.

Arts Festival

2009-06-28T11:57:00.000-07:00

The fun just keeps on going around here. Swimming lessons finished up this week, leaving us with a more relaxed schedule with just Kung Fu and Soccer for extracurricular activites for the time being. To make up for that, events aligned to make this weekend the busiest on record. Thursday, between their final swimming lesson and Laine's martial arts lesson, we squeezed in a visit to the Utah Arts Festival. The kids had a ball drinking Maui Wowies, playing in the children's art yard, and checking out the artists' booths. Then it was rush back to get Laine to class while I prepped snacks for her soccer game that evening, you know, the game right after Eve's game.

On Friday, the Bradleys held their family reunion at Seven Peaks Resort. We spent the whole day at the water park. The kids had a million fun riding the tube rides, sliding down the water slides, swimming in the Lazy River, splashing in the kiddie pools, riding the floating alligator, body surfing in the wave pool, and having the time of their lives. I even got to do the big kid slides a few times (thanks Kirsten for keeping an eye on the monkeys).

Saturday turned out to be just as big of a party. We hit the Mecham reunion (that's my Mom's Mom's Dad's clan) up in Kaysville, had lunch and whole buffet of desserts (killer carrot cake Aunt Linda). The kids played on two big playgrounds with cousins and second cousins and first cousins once removed and probably some random kids that happened to live in the neighborhood while the adults heard sordid tales of how Great-great-grandpa and Great-great-grandma used to help my mom as a teenager to dress up like an adult so she could gamble in Vegas and occasionally meet Elvis.

Even after the festivities at the reunion, we just felt like we hadn't been festive enough for the day, so we headed back for a second dose of Arts Fest. The girls made some killer bird masks and wore them all over the place, trying their best to startle people and occasionally even succeeding. Little James thought the toddles zone at the art yard was the best part, with all the slides and teeter totters that he can get anywhere else, but in a much artsier environment.

Return of the Blog-Slacker

2009-06-18T14:36:00.000-07:00

Sorry for the long hiatus, it's been a very busy couple of months. In the time since I last wrote: Laine turned 6, school ended, summer started, Laine learned to ride a bike, Laine and Eve started swimming lessons, James stomped around the house in my shoes, Laine started Kung Fu, all the kids had fun with all their cousins, Habojee and Nemo left on trips to Europe, my brother finally came over to the dark side of the force and agreed to come work at my company, the kids started a new system of making their beds and earning nickels for their piggybanks, I went to Virginia twice for work, Christine came to Salt Lake once for Laine's birthday, we ate, we worked, we played, we slept, I watched several cooking shows and played some video games, the girls made some new friends, James grinned and laughed a lot, and life generally moved on. I'm just going to dump a bunch of pictures and some videos, sorry if they're out of order or not well explained, I'm just proud of myself for finally putting up another blog entry.

Tuesdays with Habojee

2009-05-13T18:48:00.000-07:00

So lately the kids have had a standing appointment with their maternal grandfather for an afternoon playdate. For those who don't recall, the kids use their own special version of the Korean word for grandpa when they talk about their mother's father, pronounced something like "HA-bo-jee." This week Habojee got a little video footage of James that I thought was worth sharing, take a peek.

In other exciting news lately, Eve has set the world's record for time to brush teeth. No, not the fastest brushing, the slowest. Between the initial attempt and the final gleaming pearly whites tonight we had at least one full hour. Can't wait till she learns to floss, we'll probably need to start getting ready for bed at lunchtime.

James Puede Contar En Español

2009-04-29T08:29:00.000-07:00

Easter and Singing

2009-04-26T17:35:00.000-07:00

Finally getting around to putting up the pictures from Easter, sorry for the delay, life is busy when you're chasing those small animals we call children all over the place. The kids had a very fun Easter this year, complete with dying Easter eggs, playing with cousins, and dressing up in spiffy new outfits.

First up is the fashion show, James is here sporting his new hat and dressed to impress his whole nursery class (so yeah, he really impressed those two other toddlers).

The girls were very excited for their fancy hats that they fitted out with ribbons with a little help from Grandma.

Cousins Marshall, Coen, and Atticus came over for Easter time fun. Atticus and James teamed up for some double little-boy cuteness. They're a year apart (James just turned two, Addy just turned one), but somehow they managed to be close enough in size that they occasionally interchange clothes. They're about the best pals two little cousins could be.

Laine and Eve did some egg hiding with candy filled plastic eggs. All the cousins had a ball searching those out, then piling up on each other to chomp down on chocolatey goodness.

The chocolate always seems to induce silly faces.

Then they all piled into the back yard to dye some real eggs.

It was a fun day all around, we even got to have a few minutes after the sugar high wore off to talk about Jesus and the reason we get to celebrate.

Laine followed up the Easter excitement with a musical program at school the following week. They performed three times, once for the school, once for the parents, and one more for the incoming kindergarten class for next year. There was a lot of cuteness and Laine did a great job.

Here's video of one of the songs, sorry for the audio quality, it sounded a lot better in person.

One final bonus video:

James got a new pair of shoes for his birthday. When he first put them on, he was so excited he spontaneously burst into dance, which his sisters quickly picked up on and started doing too. I only caught a little of it on the camera, but I thought it was worth sharing.

He's Two Now

2009-04-20T16:03:00.000-07:00

The little man of the family had a big day recently, he is now officially big enough to use more than one finger when he tells people his age. This presents a little bit of a challenge for him, since he seems to only be able to show one, three, or four fingers at a time, but hasn't gotten the hang of holding down the right number of fingers for two. So he usually announces "TWO!" while holding up three or four fingers when someone asks his age.

We spent most of the day for his birthday down at the Gateway. First we ate lunch at the Dodo restaurant where James had an awesome blueberry cake for his dessert.

Then we headed over to the Children's Museum where James had the most fun of his whole little life.

We finished the outing off with some really good cookies and milk, then James thought it would be a really good idea to run out into the fountains and get himself drenched to cool off from the sweltering 50 degree weather. I carried the shivering boy back to the car as he murmured "Fountain get me! Fountain get me!" over and over.

Bluetail Bradley

2009-04-08T15:13:00.000-07:00

Introducing the newest member of the Bradley Clan, our very own Betta, Bluetail!

This little blue buddy joined the family today in an outing to one of the last of the locally owned and operated fish stores left in Salt Lake, Fish 4U. The people there referred to themselves as the fish nazis and told us we wouldn't be allowed to buy fish if they didn't think we could take care of them. Apparently the kids' cute grins overcame the fish nazis' common sense, since they ended up letting us walk away with one of their scaly little friends.

After talking with one of the fish nazis for a few minutes, I was all set to get a twenty gallon tank and make running an aquarium my new hobby. The kids had other plans in mind and the big tank with dozens of fish was outvoted three to one in favor of a little glass bowl with a single fish. I think they would have been more inclined to vote my way, but we would have had to get the tank today and not get any fish until tomorrow when the tank water would be the proper temperature. One day was just too long to wait to get a whole school of fish, so now we have a fine Siamese Fighting Fish instead.

So after picking out the Betta they wanted and choosing the bowl and the gravel and the plant, we got a crash course in proper care and feeding of the Betta from one of the fish nazis and took our new little guy home.

We carefully washed the rocks and prepped the bowl before pouring the new member of the family into his home.

When it came time to name the fish, there was a close race between Fifi (Laine's pick) and Dori (Eve's pick), with each sister vying for James's vote to break the tie. James settled it by naming the fish Bluetail, to which both sisters quickly agreed.

We settled little Bluetail into his new home where he will hopefully last a long time.

A sampling of E males from Laine

2009-04-03T13:41:00.000-07:00

Hi mom I am Haveing a good time in salt Lake! love laine.

Hi mommy my day was very good!what did you do today?I love you! love laine.

Hi mommy I am good at walking home from school!I love you so much! love laine.

Hi mom I am sik today but I should feel better tomorrow.you are the best mom ever!I love you much and hope you have a good day tomorrow! love laine.

Hi mom I was able to go to school today!you are the best best mom ever!I love you so so much! love laine.

Hi Mommy Eve Made it so I had to send this All over. love laine.

Hi Mommy Dad said I had to sent this note. love laine

Dear Mom,I do not ever want to Go to the dentist.I miss you so so so so so much!I love you so so so so so much!!! love laine.

Hi mommy,I am doing good today!I love you so much! Love laine

Dear mom,I got a new E male account!I love you so much! love laine.

Hi mom,james did not fly a kite.I love you so so so so so so so so much! love laine.

Dear mom,its not April Fools Day you silly!I love you! love laine.

Hi mom,I do not Have a cavity!it dose not hert at the dentist! love laine.

More Kid Pics

2009-04-02T14:51:00.000-07:00

"I can't wait till tomorrow."
"Why's that?"
"Cause I get better looking every day."

For these monkeys, I swear it's true.

Sorry for missing last week, it's been busy lately. All's as well as can be, the kids are happy and no one's dead yet.

Why weren't parks this fun 20 years ago?

2009-03-20T15:44:00.000-07:00

Springtime just seems to get better and better around here, with a string of balmy, beautiful afternoons this week, perfect for spending time outside in the fresh air and sunshine. We spent the afternoon the other day at one of the local parks, one where I used to play when I was a kid. They rebuilt the playgrouind a few years ago and it blows the doors off of the old slide and monkey bars rig they used to have.

The first thing the kids jumped on was like a newer cooler version of the old merry-go-round. It was shaped like a ring, spun on a hidden track underneath, and was tilted at an angle so that if you were spinning on it by yourself you'd get crazy speed-ups and slow-downs depending on whether you were on the downhill or uphill side of the thing. Laine quickly applied the principle of conservation of momentum to realize that she could walk on the thing in one direction to make it spin in the other direction. I feel cheated for being born twenty years too late to be able to ride on stuff like this without getting weird looks from the other parents.

James, on the other hand, went for a classic: the slide. He's a brave little guy these days, just climbs right up on his own and heads right down the slide with no need for coaxing, weedling, pleading, or pushing (unlike his sisters who used to like to sit there, ready to slide, blocking all the other kids for about an hour before mustering the courage to get up and walk away because the slide was too scary). I'm so proud of my little man.

The real attraction at this place was what replaced the old swingset. This thing was a work of art and a climber's dream. Ropes, hand-holds, bars, seats, ladders, and thingamajiggies all webbed together into an awesome contraption that the girls played on for the better part of three hours without a single complaint. I think that might set a record. The only time they did protest was when I tried the thing, and that was just because I was trying to take the seat that they wanted.

Side note, not park related: James seems to have some magical ability to attract and charm girls of all ages. Every time I turn around he's using his little cherub grin to enchant another female friend. Family, friends, neighbors, strangers, old, young, whatever, doesn't seem to matter. Girls love to chase James.

Interview with James

2009-03-13T15:40:00.000-07:00

James can talk pretty well these days, he especially likes to repeat back everything you say to him. Enjoy the show.

E-mails from Eve

2009-03-13T06:22:00.000-07:00

Laine and Eve have been very good at staying in touch with me via e-mail. Eve is particularly diligent about sending me little updates on her life on a daily basis. Sometimes even twice a day. Here are some of her all-time best e-mails to me:

dear Mom.
I love you!today I got to make a fossil!today is my sekend day at shcool
love Eve.

dear Mom.
I love you!
love Eve

dear Mom.
I love you!I hope you have a great day.
love Eve.

dear Mom.
I didn't go to church today becase I was sick.I love you!
loveEve.

mom I just have a little cold.don't you no that?
love Eve.

qwertyuiopasdfghjklzxcvbnmqwertyuiopasdfghjklzxcvbnmnnyujnjudrtgeujnhhgbjhmjkuububuhujbjihgjb

dear Mom.
you are so pretty!
loveEve.

dear Mom.
I learnd about the bigest in the sea yestrday!do not go near it if you see one it will bite you.
loveEve.

Darling Eve,

You learned about the biggest what in the sea yesterday? Don't worry. If I see one, I will stay far away so that I do not get bitten. My goodness, you're awake early today.

Much love,
Mama

dear Mom.
I learned about the elasmasuarus.
love Eve.

dear Mom.
we got new things for the gamecube! and lainey loves to play sonic.I love you.
love Eve.

dear Mom.
I love you.do you no how much I miss you.I hope you have a good day today.
love Eve.

And my all-time favorite e-mail from her:

dear Dad.
love Eve.

Back to the Farm

2009-03-07T18:43:00.001-08:00

This afternoon we went on an outing to Wheeler Historical Farm with Uncle James and cousin Atticus. When we got out of the car we were greeted by some horses, James immediately shouted out with glee: "Horsey!" Laine asked one of the farm workers how fast the horses could run, they told her about 20 miles per hour.

Next down the path were the sheep, James really liked those until they started bleating, then he got really freaked out. Atticus kept his cool.

The pigs were apparently trying to start a band or something, they were making an awesome racket banging their snouts against a garbage can lid. The kids thought it was great.

The favorite animals of the day were the little baby lambs. All the kids thought they were great, and James managed to get near them without running away crying.

Then we hit the little clubhouse, the kids loved that too. James and Eve were laughing pretty hard when we said "Boo" to them through the windows.

On the way out we stopped at the treehouse, if you squint real hard you can see Laine and Eve in the window up there.

Laine was an awesome helper getting James in and out, since the door was too small for grown-ups.

I'm going to call it a rousing success.

We came home and started making the ultimate sunday dessert:
Make a batch of cookie dough, flatten it out in a cake pan and cook it till it's done.

Make a batch of brownies in a pan that's the same size.

Slather a layer of ice cream on the cookies.

Plop the brownies on top.

Freeze overnight.

We'll see how it turns out.

Spring is Springing

2009-03-03T16:59:00.001-08:00

The weather turned beautiful today in Salt Lake City. The snow had cleared out, the sun was shining, the birds were singing, and my three favorite circus clowns were ready for some serious outdoors action. The girls spent most of the afternoon playing in the windy spring weather, first in the backyard while James was wrapping up his nap, then later in the front yard with their cousin Marshall.

James has found a new favorite thing in the whole wide world: wiffle balls. For throwing, catching, or just holding in your hand while you run around in circles, nothing beats a wiffle ball. The neighbors next door thought he was so cute playing with some of theirs that they gave a few to him to keep forver. As soon as he hits the door, he makes sure to have at least one with him at all times in the yard.

Laine on the other hand has had a bigger toy on her mind, a shiny green bicycle that Grandma keeps on hand for aspiring young cyclists in the family. She hopped on and took off like a champ, even though it's been well over a year since she's had a chance to practice. I was pretty impressed she remembered how to do it, I guess it's kind of like riding a bike.

When James saw her going, he took off in hot persuit. Note that he still has the wiffle ball.

After biking, it was clearly time for the tree-hugging competition, I think Eve won, but James was a very close second.

And of course, no afternoon of playing outside is complete without lots of hugs.

Laine did her best to prove that you don't need teeth to have an awesome smile. I think the jury is still out on this one.

Finally, did I mention that James loves to hold a wiffle ball in each hand and run around in circles? I defy you to find a person on earth as happy as this little guy.

Eve Starts Challenger

2009-02-23T15:52:00.000-08:00

Challenger, for those who don't know, is a chain of private schools that offers a great preschool curriculum at a very reasonable price. Eve has been dying to attend since the day she saw big sister Laine head off to the great big school building three years ago. Today, she finally got her wish. Amazingly enough, three years later and at a different campus, she ended up with the same teacher that Laine had. Here are Eve and James heading into the Challenger building.

Once inside, she showed off her very best "I'm a good girl" face for the teachers.

The girls took James by the hand and gave him a tour of the classroom, then sat him down and started teaching him how to count.

He ended up liking the elephant more than the arithmetic lessons.

Once Eve found her cubby and hung up her jacket and school bag, the girls performed an acrobatic spin-hug with a twist. Fortunately, no one was injured.

Finally Eve settled down just before the other students arrived so I could get a quick shot of her with her teachers.

I'm not sure if they believed me when I told them that Eve knew her numbers up to 100 (she claims she can count to a million, I'm not so sure), and that she reads chapter books on her own. I think the other kids in her class are just starting to work on how to open the box of crayons so they can chew on them. She's a bright one, that Evey.

Anyway, here's the discussion of the school day after everyone came home.

Grandma's Church

2009-02-22T11:43:00.001-08:00

Today the kids and I went to church with Grandma and Grandpa. The girls have a tradition of drawing pictures and writing little letters during the boring parts (whenever any grownups are up at the pulpit talking). Today they did some really nice ones that I wanted to share.

Here's Laine's picture of her and James.

This was Laine's letter to me. I'd like to submit this as exhibit #1 in my case to prove that I am in fact the best dad ever.

Eve just hoped you will have a good day.

She also loves you. I think this one was for Grandma.

This one was for Grandma and Granpa, she loves them a lot, as you can see from the size of the lettering.

After church we had some grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup. I tried to get James to do the "More Cookies!" chant that he was doing most of the day yesterday, but he didn't go for it. They're still pretty cute though, so enjoy the little show.

As a bonus today, James pronounced his first ever coherent three syllable word during the sacrament service at church: "Sack-err-mint!"

Laine's Journal

2009-02-20T13:09:00.000-08:00

Before I show you how brilliant Laine's journal is, I'll show you a few recent photos that I didn't get a chance to put up. For Thanksgiving, Laine was asked to "disguise" a turkey. Don't you love Mom homework? Well, since I forgot about the assignment until the night before, Laine's turkey got to dress up as the easiest thing I could put together: a surgical tech. Laine thought it was great. Here's a picture of Laine and David. Her 'special friend' from her class at Centreville Elementary. "rosa parks got on the Bus evin tho she hab dark skin. she got in truble and got arestide."

"I Liket iT Wen they mad a snowman."

"for cristmste I got a wii."

"I Am swining on the swing." Note: insects not drawn to scale.

"geronhog's hibernad in the winter. they sleeq oL Winter Long. they Wake uq in sqring." I need to work on capitalization with her as well as the difference between lowercase 'p's and 'q's. Other than that, I thought this was great.

I think Laine might have drawn this on Groundhog's Day. No words, but what a great depiction of a shadow.

Fun at the School Playground

2009-02-19T16:23:00.000-08:00

Just pics this time, enjoy.

School Is Now In Session (Again)

2009-02-18T14:44:00.000-08:00

So today Laine started at her new school. She was very excited because she got to be a kindergartner at Daddy's old school. She's even in the very same classroom where I learned my abc's and 123's. Her teacher was Mrs. Baer, who seemed very nice and said that Laine did great on her first day of school. Laine's favorite parts of the day were recess and snack, so that was about the same as at her old school.

Here she is at the entrance to my grade school alma mater.

And here she is with Mrs. Baer at the end of her first school day.

She also thought the school here is more fun because she only has half day kindergarten, so she doesn't have time to get bored during her school day.

Eve is also gearing up for school, she and I went to the local Challenger School and talked to the teachers there about getting her into their preschool program. She'll be starting there on Monday, but she was so excited to go visit the school that she got all dressed up in her new back-to-school dress.

The Road Trip

2009-02-16T16:16:00.001-08:00

So, we left Virginia on Friday morning, James brought along his two best "goggies" to keep him company on the ride.

There was a lot of reading.

There were some movies.

There were some naps.

And lots of drawing.

There was some laughing.

And some smiling.

And some silly faces.

And they took turns being grumpy.

I drove a long long long time. Uncle James did too.

We even got to eat free breakfast at the Super 8 Motel.

After a million years on the road we got to Grandma's house, where bunkbeds awaited the girls.

They were pretty glad to be there.

Bad News

2009-02-12T12:04:00.000-08:00

Sorry for the lack of updates over the last month or so, but it hasn't been just because we're lazy. For those who haven't heard the news yet, Christine and I are separating. If you need to hear the details, give either of us a call and we'll fill you in. I'm heading out in the morning with the kids for Salt Lake City, where we'll be living with my parents for a few months. The children still don't know what's going on, they are just very excited for a fun long vacation at Grandma's house. We don't really know what's going on either in terms of long term plans, so don't bother asking about that. I'll be maintaining the blog from now on with regular cute pictures of the best kids ever.

Mumping with Mames

2009-01-04T13:37:00.000-08:00

So every night at bedtime, James and I have a little ritual of jumping up the stairs. He starts at the very bottom of the stairs and puts both hands up in the air and announced "Mumping!" I grab his hands and bounce him up to his room on the top floor taking five or six stairs at a time. If I forget and just carry him up, he runs down to the bottom step and puts his hands up and says "Mumping!" till I jump him up to bed. Christine tried to put him down the other day (an effort that ended up with a lot of snuggling, but not so much sleeping), but he wouldn't hop in bed till she had mumped him up the stairs.

He seems to know his own name now, though the J sound is not forthcoming, so now when you ask him who he is, instead of pointing to himself and saying "Dada!" and giggling, he responds with a more sedate "Mames." (check http://bradleyclan.blogspot.com/2008/10/whos-yo-dada.html in case you haven't seen his old answer yet). He's getting to be a pretty good communicator generally, but you have to know some of his special words:

Nay-nee: Laine
Weeb: Eve
Eweeyoh: Cereal
Nie-nie: Goodnight
Tankoo: Thanks
Puddol: Puzzle (his favorite toy lately)
Bopper: Diaper
Eeeeewwwww: Please change my bopper
Mine!: May I please play with that toy for a while?
Lap!: Could I please sit with you for a moment?
Uuuuuuh!: Ask Christine, I can never figure this one out
Uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuhhhhhh!: I'm very tired and grouchy so please put me down for a nap.

Merry Christmas!

2008-12-28T09:07:00.000-08:00

Merry Christmas, everybody! Here are some pics from our fun holiday season.Laine loved her presents this year. She got a magician's kit, a journal, some books and toys and a book that she could be the author and illustrator of. She's absolutely loving it! We'll post pictures when she's done with it.Eve was delighted with every single present. My technique for never disappointing the kids on Christmas is simply not setting any expectations. I don't even ask them what they want. Then, if I only end up getting them like 3 books and 2 toys each, they're completely thrilled because that's 3 more books and 2 more toys than they get on a regular day. I think I may only be able to get away with this for another year or two before their friends start telling them about all the iPods and Barbie cars that they're getting for Christmas.Here's Eve with her Dada.James is a total puzzle champ. This is a little video of him doing this puzzle for the first time ever.
This December, I was super duper busy and stressed out, so I didn't get a single holiday card sent out and many presents are still en route, so sorry everyone. Yet again, I have failed at Christmas. Next year, I'm going to get my ducks in order before Halloween. I hope ya'll have a fun New Year's this week.

A Gingerbread House Making Party

2008-12-22T09:38:00.000-08:00

Today Laine's kindergarten class had a gingerbread house making party. They started out the holiday celebration by enjoying latkes for snack time.Then they assembled their gingerbread houses.Laine was delighted by all the fun candy colors she could use on her house.Here, she proudly displays her finished product.And here she is as an adorable gingerbread girl.

Disney World

2008-12-21T05:40:00.000-08:00

Last week, our family had the opportunity to go to Orlando on vacation. What an adventure we had. Both the flight there and back were fabulous. The kids were very well behaved, the flights were on time, and the flights were about half full so we had plenty of room to sprawl.When we got to Orlando, we were met by my aunt, uncle, mom and sister. Every night the kids played card games like Go Fish and Garbage with my sister. I was amazed at how quickly they caught onto these games which I thought were too complicated for a four and five year old.We spent a day at Magic Kingdom where the girls were mesmerized by the castle, the shows, the characters and the rides. Chris and my poor sister hauled the girls around on their shoulders a lot so they could see everything. I'm achy and sore from having James in a sling or holding him all week long. James surprised me by learning how to do puzzles while we were on the vacation. He also learned new words like "sling," "snuggle," "puzzle" and "mother." He may catch up to the girls one day in ability to speak and communicate.Laine was kind of a scaredy cat. Here she is on the Jungle Cruise. She was freaked out the whole time and kept asking if the animals were really fake. Eve was very brave though. After the craziness at Magic Kingdom, we decided James was really too young for the theme parks, so he stayed at the resort with me the remainder of the time while the girls went off on adventures. They apparently had a ball at Sea World. They got to pet a dolphin for like 10 minutes and went on nautical roller coasters. I wish I had pictures to post, but like I said, I stayed behind and it doesn't normally occur to Dads, bless their hearts, to capture these moments on film.Here's James chilling with my aunt munching on an apple. The elephant he's holding is one of two elephants that my sister brought him from Wales. He immediately fell in love with them and insisted on holding them both in his hands for almost the entire vacation. Oh! That was his other new word: "ehphant!"Despite all the theme parks and fun things there are to do in Orlando, Laine and Eve's favorite thing was to hang out at the pool. James loved it too. He loved being tossed high in the air between me and Chris in the pool. We called him rocket boy and he squealed with delight and laughed hysterically every time he was tossed in the air. Here's a very happy Eve enjoying some night swimming

Star of the Week

2008-12-11T21:33:00.000-08:00

This week was super duper exciting for Laine. It was her turn to be the class Star of the Week. The big SoW is a prestigious status awarded only one week out of the school year so you can just imagine her excitement at being chosen. The SoW and the SoW's mother have many responsibilities that include things like making a poster.

In the above photo, Laine is holding a biography that her classmates wrote about her after they interviewed her about her life. They asked what color her cars were, what her favorite movies and games were, how many siblings, etc. The SoW also gets to have her parents come in and read to the class with them.Laine and her Daddy captivated the audience with the tale of Rumplestiltskin.And even though this post is about Lainey, I had to throw in this shot of Eve looking so sassy.Oh and here's a good picture of our Star of the Week where you can see her newly upper-toothless state. The tooth fairy has been a frequent visitor at our place lately.And Natalie, babe, this one's for you. A picture of me! This shows that I really love you a lot because I hate having my picture taken. Today was my last final of the semester so some girlfriends and I went out and celebrated. Us nurses sure party hard, let me tell ya.

And that's been our lives lately. Now that I'm out of school for a month, I'll update the blog more frequently. Ooh! And I'm planning some major organizing projects for the house. I really know how to live it up when I'm not in school.

Happy Thanksgiving!

2008-11-27T18:13:00.000-08:00

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone! This year we had a great little feast at our house. Dain and Maryann, Chris's cousin, came over with their family to celebrate with us. We all had a great time and ate way too much food. Here are a few things that the girls are thankful for.

And here are some recent ADORABLE pictures of James, my little love.
And here are my boys getting a Daddy and me haircut yesterday.

I Love You Tooth Fart

2008-11-20T09:18:00.000-08:00

Laine came home very excited from school yesterday. Her friend, Camilla, had suggested that Laine simply pinch her tooth and pull it out. So, she did. And it worked. When she told us this story, Chris and I had the exact same response. We've been telling you to do that for a week! Laine said, "Yeah, but you didn't tell me about the pinching part." She got to go to the school clinic and get a treasure box for her tooth.

Eve was very excited for Laine. Last night, the girls didn't fall asleep until like 11:00. They were in their rooms having the most fun anyone has ever had. I had ordered some fairy prints to hang on their walls and the girls were really excited about that. Then they were busy alternating between playing fairies and superheros for about an hour and a half. Then they fought and tattled and whined for another good hour before finally falling asleep. There was a LOT of noise coming from the pink room. When it was finally safe for the tooth fairy to work her magic, she has a cute surprise waiting for her.

She also enclosed a letter with the tooth describing what had happened. Dear tooth FAiry I puLD Mi tooth ote in P.E. Love Laine!
Also, I finally caught James doing his "Wake Up!" trick on film.

A Weekly Update on the Kids

2008-11-17T20:47:00.000-08:00

I can't even begin to tell you how much I adore baby James. I love all the kids so very very much, but I think James might love me back the most. He's always willing to snuggle and give me smooches and say sweet things to me. This is him settling down for a nap in his little bed. When he doesn't have his mama to snuggle, he snuggles his woof-woof. His latest cute trick is he'll squint his eyes shut, cover them with his hands, then he'll uncover his eyes and say, "Wake up!" I tried to catch it on film, but he wouldn't cooperate. He also gets a big kick out of pat-a-cake.

Our Eve is ever the lovely princess. Her preschool teacher just loves her and was telling us how proud she was of Eve for finally opening up and talking in class. She used to be so shy and quiet and never said a word. She's still up to her usual pretending games. This morning during girls' reading time, we had to stop and act out each book we read. She has the loveliest sleeping face so I had to post this picture.

Our Lainey girl still has that upper tooth hanging by a thread. She's so scared to let us yank it. This picture's from today. The tooth really needs to go. It looks kinda gross always dangling off at a funny angle, but she insists that it needs to come out on it's own. It's a busy week in school for her with all sorts of fun Thanksgiving activities coming up.

Slumber Party

2008-11-16T15:55:00.000-08:00

So we've found a family here in Virginia that we quite like. They live a few doors down from us and happen to have three children very close in ages to our own. Their girls and ours have regular playdates several times a week, sometimes all over at one house or the other and sometimes swapping Eve for Laine's friend or Laine for Eve's friend. On Friday we had their oldest over with Eve visiting their house, and when I got home from work I was greeted with an alarmingly cute chorus of "Can we have a sleep-over? Can we have a sleep-over? Can we have a sleep-over?" from Laine and her buddy. Christine gave her OK, and we swung by their house to pick up Eve and see if their parents were up for it. They gave permission so we headed back home with an extra buddy in tow for a night of festivities.

We made some soup and sandwiches for dinner, then popped some popcorn and had a pajama popcorn movie party in the basement. Afterwards the girls had the most fun brushing teeth that anyone has ever had in the pursuit of dental hygiene. Eve went upstairs and slept in the pink room while Laine and her buddy took the queen bed in the downstairs bedroom. The giggling didn't stop for at least three hours. In the morning I made hash browns and eggs and the girls played some more. I officially declare Laine's first sleep-over a success.

I Don't Feel Like It: The biography of a fairy princess

2008-11-13T20:42:00.001-08:00

Oftentimes, during church, our family passes notes to one another. This serves two major purposes: 1) It improves the girls' reading comprehension and writing skills and 2) It takes an immense amount of energy and concentration for the girls to be able to write legibly, which means energy not spent fussing. Last week, this was the note that went back and forth between me and Eve while Eve was supposed to be up front singing with the rest of the kids.When she sent it back to me, it dawned on me that her response was pretty much the story of her life summed up in one sentence. In case you can't read it, it says:

Me: Eve, will you please sit with the other sunbeams?

Eve: I don't feel like it.

Me: It would make me very happy if you obeyed your mother.

Eve: *scribble* (Apparently, she didn't even want to dignify that with a written response.)

"I don't feel like it" really has pretty much been Eve's mantra since birth. It all started with the breech thing where she didn't feel like turning and it's been that way ever since. With Eve, everything has to be done according to her timeline. You have to wait until she feels like it. Why else would a three year old who could read better than 1/4 of my graduating high school class be unable to potty train?To her credit, Eve did start to cooperate eventually. Here are some notes written 20 minutes after the first one. It seems that James is following in Eve's footsteps with the whole "I don't feel like it" thing. Here's a picture of him awake at like 1:00 in the morning yesterday because he didn't feel like sleeping in his own bed. He's been getting up at all hours and it's sooooooo hard for me to put on my angry mom eyes and send him back to bed when he's so freaking adorable! Look at him! Would you be able to be the bad cop and send this baby to bed? Or would you want to snuggle him?Oh, here are some pictures I took of James when we went to the polls on Election Day. He and I got up early and got to the polls at 6:00 when they opened. We waited in a really really really long line. Here he is afterward sporting his "I Voted" stickers. I've gotta save these pictures to show his grandkids how he came with his mama to vote for Obama.

Oh and I wanted to post a picture of Laine before she loses a very wiggly top tooth. I'm really not at all happy about this loose tooth stage happening so early. I really thought it wasn't until like the age of 6 that the cute baby teeth start to go. Today, Chris went to volunteer at Laine's classroom during art time. She was super excited about that. And that pretty much sums it up for updates on our family. It's been a fairly quiet week. We're all kinda under the weather, but other than that, life is good.

They Just Might Be Smart

2008-11-03T16:38:00.000-08:00

Brace yourself, it's coming, you know we have to do it now and then, so just let us get it out of our system. Here it is: a brag post. Please feel free to skip this one and come back next week when we're less busy talking about how smarty-pants we think our kids are.

We went to Laine's first Kindergarten parent teacher conference today. Mrs. Moulder, her teacher, told us she was doing quite well, and that they had decided to postpone her expulsion by at least another week or two. She did quite well on her reading assessment, scoring up with the kids about to finish the first grade. First graders must have improved since I was there. Laine scored 191 out of 193 on the standardized test. She did miss one question so they'll probably make her repeat Kindergarten until she can tell a capital I from a lower-case l. I should probably get sent back there with her, since I've missed that before too.

We'll start the picture section of this post with some of Laine's school notebook drawings. Note that almost all the letters are pointed in the right direction. You can probably almost tell what everything in the pictures are, which is better than you'd do with any drawing I've ever done.

Here's the family going to cherch.

Here are the girls plaeing on the swing.

This is Laine when she wint to the bookfar.

Here she is playing sokr.

Here are the girls saying "Hy" to each other.

Eve likes to write notes to Mom, and slip them into her binder so she finds them at school. The first time this happened the notes were written on the backs of some photos that we couldn't find anywhere. Now she uses paper, which we appreciate.

"Mommy. I Love you. and. your. cute. I. AM. Are. you. GOOD. To: MOM. From EVE."

I am retarded and can't get the pictures going the right direction. At least the kids are smart.

Here is one from Laine (also delivered by binder-slipping to Mom):

Eve likes to draw good staff for Mom.

Laine did some great ghosts for Halloween. Pac-man is trembling in his boots right now.

One of the important parts about leaving a note for somebody is making sure that they read it. It helps to put a little line at the end of the note telling people to read it. Surveys show that adding this line can increase readership by up to 37%.

Finally, Christine is deeply, madly, and passionately in love with.... the fall.

Bet you thought it would be me. Nope. It's the fall.

This is the view from the kids' bedroom windows into the forest in the back yard. Note that there are trees. I think that's what Christine likes about the fall, maybe I should try growing leaves.

Happy Halloween!

2008-11-02T21:22:00.000-08:00

We sure had a fun and exciting Halloween around here. First, we went to Laine's school to see her Halloween parade. The kindergarteners were asked to dress like a character from a book and bring the book with them for the parade. Eve and James went to the parade dressed in their Halloween costumes. Here's my fierce Jedi knight.

And my lovely fall fairy princess.The parade was great. Laine went as Fancy Nancy.

That's what her mild-mannered alter ego calls herself, anyway. By night, she's really Supergirl!

Here, our little Yoda boy has a snack before going out for his big Halloween adventure.First, all three kids went around our little cul-de-sac.Then Chris dropped James off with me and took the girls trick-or-treating for a few more streets.Yoda and I passed out candy and hung out. The girls came home with tons of loot! Hope your Halloween was as fun as ours.

Happy 4th Birthday, Eve!

2008-10-29T17:43:00.000-07:00

For those of you who don't remember what happened 4 years ago, I'll fill you in on the highlights. When Laine was 17 months old, I was very very prego. I was all set to deliver at the birthing center in Holladay except for one little problem. My baby was breech. I had known this for weeks and had tried every home remedy known to google to turn the kid. This included the pelvic tilt, moxabustion, acupuncture, chiropractics, and standing on my head. Haha yeah I know the thought of upside down pregnant ladies conjures up such a comical image. But you try coming up with a better method than gravity for turning babies vertex, ok? Anyway, finally, my midwife referred me to an obstetrician who had a 100% success rate at turning babies. Well, that was until she met me. The baby stayed stubbornly footling breech and I was scheduled for a section on election day which I didn't care about because I didn't like either Kerry or Bush. I was devastated about the section though.

The Friday night prior to my section, I started to feel crampy. On Saturday morning, I woke up and was definitely contracting. Luckily, I'd practiced my relaxation techniques and was in no pain. I called in to work and my boss's wife (as well as dear friend of mine), Serena, covered for me while Chris and I dropped Laine off at my parents and went to the hospital to check things out. When the nurse came in to check my cervix, she said "Oh! Body parts!" and ran out of the room to open up the OR. Very shortly afterward, our little feet-first Eve entered the world. Here's a picture of our little 5 and a half pound peanut, stubborn since conception.And here she is today blowing out the candles to her 4th birthday cake.Laine loves chocolate.Eve got SO many presents! Thanks, everyone. Our little fairy princess felt absolutely pampered. And a special thanks to those who got a little something for Laine and James. That always helps alleviate the inevitable SBJS (Sibling's Birthday Jealousy Syndrome for those of you who aren't in health care).

James learned a few new words today. He can say "Up!" As in, "Help me up into Laine and Eve's bed so I can giggle and read and play pretending games with them all night!" He can also say "Mine!" As in "I don't care if it's your birthday and all these things are pink and girly. I want them!"Is "Hmph" a word? As in "Hmph! Fine! I'll go sleep in my own bed, but only after screaming and fussing for 45 minutes!"

By the way, Eve's birthday is actually on the 30th, tomorrow, but I have class on Thursday nights, so we celebrated early.

Our Creative Little Eve

2008-10-27T22:27:00.000-07:00

Who else but our little Eve would think to make a wig out of a nightgown? Eve's wild imagination never ceases to amaze me. During today's pretending marathon while Laine was in school, this was one of the many costumes Eve came up with. She was being a lovely fairy named Eve Fairy Princess who had long flowing white hair with flowers in it.

Baby Birds

2008-10-23T21:04:00.000-07:00

As you know, every night when the girls are supposed to be asleep, they're busy pretending to be one thing or another. The other night it was baby birdies. They arranged their blankets into nests and have been sleeping in their nests for a few days now.

This Week Was Packed WIth Fun!

2008-10-17T18:36:00.000-07:00

This past week was incredibly busy! We had so much to do. Here's a small sampling of this week's highlights. I took Eve and James to the petting zoo to make up for the fact that Laine got to go on a field trip to a dairy farm. Eve loved feeding the little baby goats. She mostly liked feeding the teeniest ones.Over the weekend, it was Laine's turn to bring home her classroom mascot, Phillipe the Frog. We had a very fun weekend with Phillipe. She immediately introduced him to our other frog, Hoppity-Hop and to the rest of the family.As a special treat, we had a tea party outing on Saturday with the frogs. The girls thought it was great.On Tuesday, I chaperoned on Laine's field trip. While the farmer was explaining to us about how they hook up the cows to a machine to get the milk out, I saw a little light go off in Laine's eyes as she turned excitedly to look at me as if to say, "Hey! Just like you!" Thank goodness her verbal filter is improving and she didn't say it out loud.On Monday, just like every other morning that I'm home, I woke up to the grunty squeal of a baby that wants to nurse. But when I reached around the side of the bed to pick up my baby, it wasn't James. No. It was Maryanne. James's sister, Weeeeb, had changed his clothes and his name. Chris hates it when the girls cross dress James, but I think it's hilarious. Speaking of Weeeeb, her cute comment of the week happened when she appeared to be deep in thought. I asked her what she was thinking about and she gigglingly replied, "I wasn't thinking about anything. Notice how there are no clouds with bubbles over my head?"We ended the busy week with a fall family walk. Don't let the pictures fool you. It was miserable. We only got like 1/8 of a mile away from our house before the fussing got to be too much for me to take and we had to turn around.Lately, James loves to grab a stick and use it like a cane. He looks like such a cute little old man.By the way, this little stinker popped all the keys off the keyboard on my laptop this morning while I was enjoying the unusual peace and quiet while I folded laundry. I was able to fix all of them except for the letter "f". Every time I type "f" it takes me like 10 seconds. Do you think James looks more like his dada?Or his mama? We can't figure it out. Half the people we meet tell us he's the spitting image of Chris, and other people say he's all me.
Hope your week's been good. Enjoy fall while it lasts!

Who's Yo Dada?

2008-10-13T17:31:00.000-07:00

Sometimes, It is very hard for little boys to remember who's who in their family. This week, James learned how to say his sisters' names: Nainee and Weeeeb.

Halloween Sneak Preview

2008-10-09T20:35:00.000-07:00

Here's a little sneak peek at our Halloween this year. As some of you know, Halloween is my all time favorite holiday. On October 1st, the lights went up. Eve is going to be a lovely fairy princess this year. So really, Halloween will be just like every other day of the year for Eve. On the right is Eve's new friend Riley who lives up the street. She's going to be Dora. They decided to dress up during a play date a couple of days ago.Faster than a speeding bullet! That's our very own Super Girl Laine running down the sidewalk there, off to save the day.Eve the magical fairy princess was casting a spell here to make leaves fall from trees.
I didn't want to overwhelm you with cuteness with this blog post, so I'll save pictures of James's Halloween costume for a blog post closer to Halloween. Happy haunting!!!

While Laine is at Soccer Practice...

2008-10-06T18:02:00.001-07:00

Eve and James are busy having the time of their lives on the playground! Soccer practice is held every Monday afternoon at Laine's elementary school. Over the past few weeks the kids that are at school for the after school program have gotten to know and love James. When we arrived today, about half a dozen 9 year old boys shouted, "James!!!" and ran over to play with him. I would expect that from school aged girls, but it's really funny to see a bunch of boys go gaga over a baby. Eve loves getting playground time too. Some times our new neighbor friends are there and she loves playing with them.

I can occasionally get a glimpse of James peeking through his entourage of 4th graders.

James really likes it when the kids push him in this swing. He giggles and laughs while he rides it.

Behind Eve is the soccer field where Laine plays. Laine was very excited when she came home from school because she got to be "on the news" today. Apparently her school does a little TV broadcast into all the classrooms in the morning and Laine got to to down to the studio and say the pledge of allegiance in front of the whole school today. Way to go, Lainey girl!

Bad to the Bone

2008-10-04T13:31:00.000-07:00

Today, the boy charmed everyone at my company picnic with his stubby little cuteness. He's added a couple of new words to his vocaulary. One is "oof oof" which he says every time he sees a dog or a kangaroo. The other is "Oop!" without the 's' at the end, every time he drops something, which is quite frequently. We keep waiting for him to really talk, but he just has no motivation to. Oh and he also replies, "Ummmmm" every time you ask him a question, unless the answer is "Noooo", but Chris doesn't think "Umm" counts as a word.

October has Arrived!!!!

2008-10-01T15:33:00.000-07:00

This afternoon, we welcomed in October by reading some spooky Halloween kids books. As we were eating dinner, I heard the sound of an owl. I glanced out the window to see a huge gorgeous brown and white owl perched on the branch over our porch staring back at me. It must have been 18 inches tall. Our whole family got to see it. I tried to take video footage of it but as I opened the door to get a better shot, it spread it's wings and swooped off into the woods. We decided it must be an omen to put up our Halloween lights. After dinner we decorated the porch with strands of orange lights (pictures to follow). Oooh how I love October!

My Husband, Super Dad!

2008-09-30T19:07:00.000-07:00

I'm supposed to be prepping out a case study presentation that I have to do for my clinical group tomorrow, but I just had to take a couple of minutes to blog about the amazing man I'm married to. On Tuesdays, I leave in the afternoon to go to school and Chris comes home early from work to take the kids and meet Laine at the bus stop. In between lab and lecture tonight, I called home to check on things. Not only was Chris watching our kids, but he had like 6 neighbor kids over as well and I could hardly hear him over all the fun and laughter going on in the background. When I got home, he already had James fast asleep in his bed and was reading with the girls to get them ready to sleep. He's just so amazing and takes care of everything. This morning, he got up, packed Laine's lunch and got her off to the bus stop. Every day, he uncomplainingly and in fact, smilingly, plays with the kids, teaching them new things, reads to them, teaches them to read to him, makes their meals, gives them baths, washes their clothes, and tucks them in at night. Oh, and did I mention he's our primary breadwinner too? Oh and he's been to every soccer game, taken sick kids to doctor's appointments, been the back-to-school night dad, and done a million other things. Babe, you're the best. Thanks for everything.
I wish you could see James's face in this picture. He's so happy when his Dada reads to him.

Sorry I've been such a blog slacker...

2008-09-28T19:10:00.000-07:00

but life's been so hectic! Plus, my camera's at work right now, so I haven't had a chance to upload recent pictures of the kids. So, here are a couple of old pictures. These first two are from almost exactly one year ago. Laine had just gotten her Wonder Woman costume in the mail and was trying it on for us. I think out of all the kids, Eve's the one that's grown the most since last year. She looks so little to me in this picture with her footie pajamas and snuggling her woof woof.Here's James a year ago when he and I visited Chris when the kids and I were still in Salt Lake. He hasn't really grown much and pretty much looks the same except that now he can walk and make a few animal noises. The other day, we were getting ready for a bath and my little naked James stood right in front of the toilet and peed. Unfortunately, he was about 10 inches too short to clear the rim, but he was very pleased with himself for peeing like Daddy.This picture is recent. It's from earlier this month on Laine's first soccer practice. I hadn't had a chance to buy her the uniform yet because they'd announced the practice that same day. She has practice once a week and games every Saturday. Chris takes her to the games and I haven't been to one yet, but he said on her first game she decided she liked the other team better and was rooting for them. But this week, she was supporting her team and even made a significant contribution toward scoring the team's only goal that game. Go Laine!
Life has been really busy. Sending Laine to kindergarten means that Eve relies on me to be her pretending game buddy all day which is so exhausting! I never gave Laine the credit she deserved for entertaining Eve. By the end of the day when I leave for class or work, I'm already drained. Last week, I dozed off with James for half an hour and when I woke up, six of my fingernails had sparkly nail polish on them. Other than being really busy, life is good.

Updates on Life

2008-09-17T17:24:00.000-07:00

Here's the latest on what's going on in our little family. Last week, Eve suffered another terrible haircut. This time she was not the victim of her elder sister's aspirations to be a hair stylist. It was self-inflicted. Below is a picture of our newly bobbed little Eve after a real hair stylist fixed it.

Secondly, I feel like we've been neglecting our sweet baby James in our blog posts lately, so here he is, my cute baby boy:

Chris and Laine are getting ready to dive into some birthday cake. Laine, by the way, just poked her head in our bedroom to announce that she was so cold she got the goofbumps. That's pretty accurate, I'd say.James is getting a workout with Chris's new birthday weights. We decided we could use a little toning up. Here he is below lifting like a fourth of his body weight. And here he is devouring some cake. I'm relieved to announce that Laine has still refrained from becoming a kindergarten drop out. We just got a litte visit from my aunt, Laine's emo-halmoni. Laine was super excited to have her pick her up and drop her off at the bus stop.Laine's teacher asked us for a photo of our family for Laine to keep at school and I realized we haven't taken one since James was born, so our lovely neighbor Ms. Joan took this snapshot for us today. And that's the five minute update. Sorry this post wasn't very entertaining. I have a ton of studying to do for an exam tomorrow, but hopefully the pictures of cute kids makes up for the lack in editorial content.

They're supposed to be asleep!

2008-09-14T18:21:00.000-07:00

But instead, they're talking nonsense and having the time of their lives:

Eve: My face looks so automatically cute!
Laine: HAhaha let's hide!
Eve: I seeeeee youuuuuu OW!
Laine: Sorry! I'm very very sorry. I wish my name were A-E-I-O-U then it could be aaeeeiooo
Eve: Yeah and I wish my name were A-E-I-O-U-Y
Laine: Yeah and I wish my name was A-E-I-O-U-Y
Eve: Yeah then we could be twins. Hey, and do I look cute in these pajamas?
Laine: Here, I'm gonna whisper something in your ear. *whisper* *giggles* now don't tell that to anyone else.
Eve: *whisper* HEHEHEHE Now don't tell that to anyone else.
*more whispers*
Eve: That was a funny whisper! Let me whisper something in your ear!
Laine: Come here, I'll whisper something in your ear.
Eve: No, I want it to be the end.
Laine: No! I want it to be more.
Eve: Fine, one more whisper.
*whisper whisper whisper*
Both: HEHEHAHAHAHAHA
Laine: You said it was time for a party in the night time. Ok let me give my last whisper to you!
Both: HEHEHEHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Eve: I can't believe you said I'm an eyeball-head!! That was so funny!
Laine: Ok I'll whisper one last or maybe two last jokes in your year. Ok how 'bout one more.
Eve: I'm not a flower head. I want to tell you a joke not in your ear. Why did the cock-a-doodle-doo crawl in the window and broked my sign that says 'Do not wet the bed' and turn into a giant monster?
Both: *laughing too hysterically to deliver the punchline*
Laine: Let's read the book "The boy who loves dumplings."
Eve: Help! Help! I lost my dress! Hehehee I live in a treehouse! Hehehehe I lost my mommy on an outing. hehehehe Was that funny?
Laine: No. Let's do one, two, buckle my shoe taking turns. I want to say the part that goes "Three, four, shut the door" so that means you have to start.
Eve: One, two buckle my shoe
Laine: Three, four, shut the door
Eve: Five, six, pick up sticks
Laine: Seven, eight, lay them straight
Eve: Nine, Ten, do it again!
Laine: Yeah, except let's not do it again.
Eve: Okay, nine, ten, don't do it again!
Laine: Do you want me to make you a bed?
Eve: Okay!!! Make one for my pretend friend too
Laine: Ok, I'm gonna make it right here on the floor and your pretend friend's is gonna be right over here. Does the bed fit you?
Eve: Umm, yeah but my pretend friend says she wants to snuggle me, so..
Laine: Eve! Just don't listen to your pretend friend, alright? Listen to me. I'm making your bed cozy.
Eve: Umm well my pretend friend says she's gonna die if she doesn't snuggle me.
Laine: Oh, well that's good because you don't like her, right?
Eve: NO! That's bad because I do like her! My pretend friend is gonna die if she doesn't have me, the queen of sleep, snuggle her.
Laine: Oooh I like the jewels of your queen of sleep crown!
Eve: Don't touch my jewels!!
Laine: You're not the boss of me! Please can I touch just one of them?
Eve: You just touched the not-sister-liking square. Now I don't like you.
Laine: *touch* How 'bout now?
Eve: Oh, yes! You touched the extra sister-liking jewel. Now I like you a lot!

We're OK

2008-09-12T06:09:00.000-07:00

The edge of one of those hurricaney things last week brushed by our neighborhood. It rained for a day and a night and a day and it was real windy, but we hunkered down inside for most of it and we were just fine. We did lose phone and internet for about three days, which was real rough, but compared to folks who had their houses blow away I guess we did alright.

Laine is still going to kindergarten, but she plans to drop out any day now, except on the days when she really, really, really, really likes going to kindergarten. She did get busted for laying too many smooches on one of the boys in her class, she probably would have gotten away with it but he was crying for help while she was all over him. At least she still hasn't been sent to the principal's office. Any day now though.

The other kids are doing great, they're enjoying the bonus mom attention while Laine is away at school. Christine got them a fun Noah's Ark play set, with a boat and a whole slew of wooden animals that they play with all day. James is getting quite a few of the animal sounds down and likes to roar a lot. He's still not much for people sounds like words yet though.

Anyway, it's my birthday, happy birthday to me.

Laine is off to school

2008-09-02T18:05:00.000-07:00

So around six this morning we were awakened by a very excited Laine who wanted to know if it was time for school to start yet. We said no and went back to sleep. Around six fifteen this morning we were awakened by a very excited Laine who wanted to know if it was time for school to start yet. We said no and went back to sleep. Around six thirty this morning we were awakened by a very excited Laine who wanted to know if it was time for school to start yet. We said no and went back to sleep. Around six forty-five this morning we were awakened by a very excited Laine who wanted to know if it was time for school to start yet. We said no and went back to sleep. Around seven this morning we were awakened by a very excited Laine who wanted to know if she could have breakfast. We told her to eat the yogurt in the fridge and went back to sleep. You can probably guess how the rest of the morning went.

Finally, almost three hours after the fuzzy-headed little beast started her morning campaign to get to school, it was time to see her off at the school bus for her first day of kindergarten. The schools here apparently stock themselves on crayons, markers, colored pencils, glue sticks and the like by having each kindergartner haul their weight in school supplies into class the first day.

I was pretty sure Christine was going to have streamers and party hats ready to break out as soon as she was gone, ready to celebrate the advent of a wonderful new era of only having two small monkeys climbing on her during the day instead of three. I was totally wrong. Christine had little tears in the corners of her eyes as she watched Laine's bus take off up the road to the school. I still don't understand this whole motherhood thing, I'm glad she's got it figured out.

Anyway, the day went by and I ducked out of work a little early to pick Laine up at the bus stop and take her out for a little ice cream.

It took her about an hour and a half, but she finally explained how she almost got sent to the principal's office the first day for throwing a fit about not having a packed lunch in her backpack. Apparently, explaining the lunch system to her three times before sending her to school just wasn't enough. We'll go through it another half dozen times in the morning and also pack her a lunch, just in case. We don't want her to get busted until at least day three. She went back and forth between being ecstatic about going back to school tomorrow and deciding that school was boring and she was never going back more times than I could count, so we may or may not have to toss her on the bus and run in the morning to get her to go. On the up side, I think she believed me when I told her if she didn't go to school the police would come and take her to jail, so hopefully she won't kick and scream too much if the bus arrives just when she decides again never to ever ever ever go to school again ever ever.

On a more spiritual note, we did a Father's Blessing for her last night, the night before school started. It was great. When it was finished, Laine turned to me and told me that right in the middle she got a feeling inside that made her so, so, so happy. Christine was crying a little for that one too. One of the better spiritual outpourings our little family has experienced lately, it's nice to have moments like that to remind us that the church isn't just something we go to on Sunday.

A Small Sampling of the Goofy Things Eve Has Said Recently

2008-09-01T17:31:00.000-07:00

As you all know, Eve is as silly as could be. Here are a few of the goofy comments she made last week:

1) When my friend, Krista, was watching Eve and James during Laine's open house, Eve gave her a tour of the house. When they walked past this chair (this is a picture of it from our old house):
Eve said, "And this is the Papa chair"
Krista: "Oh, is it called that because your dad likes to sit there?"
Eve: "Nope. That's just it's name."

2) Last week I took Eve to Target and let her pick out some stickers. She picked out some butterfly ones and when we got home, she started to put them in a notebook leaving lots of pages between each sticker. Her comment was "I'm giving my butterflies lots of personal space." Oh if only she would do that for people too.

3) When we last visited Salt Lake, Grandma got the girls some matching dresses. As we were getting ready for church yesterday, both the girls picked out this dress. Eve burst into tears and couldn't be consoled. We told them how cute they both look in it, but Eve sobbed, "Our Sunday School teachers won't be able to tell us apart!!!" We offered to style their hair in different hair-dos so that they could each be distinctive, and explained that the Laine being a whole head taller would make it pretty easy to tell them apart, but this didn't appease her. Finally, I made a name tag for Eve that said, "I am Eve. NOT Laine." This made her very happy and they went to church in the matching dresses.

4) We recently finished reading the BFG by Roald Dahl and last week I was drinking some Perrier in the dining room. When I got up to do something in the kitchen, Eve, grinning ear-to-ear, took a giant gulp of my Perrier. When she burped, her face fell, and she said disappointedly, "Awww, I wanted the bubbles to go down so I could do a whizzpopper." If the terms 'whizpopper' and 'frobscottle' don't mean anything to you, you'll have to read the BFG.

And a bonus goofball comment from Laine:

A couple of days ago, Laine discovered where the tooth fairy hides her teeth after she collects them: Right in Mom's jewelry box (oops)! So she gets a bright idea and says, "Hey! I know! I'm gonna take these and put them under my pillow again to trick the tooth fairy into giving me more dollars." Sure, Laine. That would totally work if the tooth fairy was a complete idiot, which she's NOT!

Laine's Back to School Open House

2008-08-28T12:52:00.000-07:00

Today was Open House at Laine's new school, Centreville Elementary School. My good friend from work watched Eve and James so that Laine could have some special time with mom and dad while we all get to know her new environment. Earlier this week, Laine got a letter of introduction from her new teacher, so last night Laine wrote this letter to give to them. I was so proud. The only words I helped her with were her teachers' names. In case you're not accustomed to deciphering kindergarten writing, the letter says:
Dear Mrs. Moulder and Mes Leitch My naem is Lainey My sister is Evey 3 1/2 My beruther isNaeMis James 1 THIS is Mom and Dad I AM 5 I Am SkcaerD for schooL I wiL BE HAPey to See you SinSeeerLy Lainey

On the way to school, Laine told me a heartbreaking confession. It went like this: "Um, Mom. I really have to tell you something. One time, a while ago, I broke the plate that says 'Less Dessert' on it and I didn't want you to know so I swept up the pieces and while I was cleaning it I got a cut on the tip of my finger, so that was why I had to wear a sock over my hand. So you wouldn't find out." It was so sweet and sad! I was worried that this had happened at someone else's house because I couldn't figure out for the life of me why I of all people would own a plate that had 'Less Dessert' written on it. Then I realized she meant 'Les Dessert' which is one of the plates from my french themed dessert plate collection that my sister gave me.

When we got there, Laine found her classroom and quickly located the backpack hook with her name on it.

She delivered her letter to her teachers. Here she is getting to know Mrs. Moulder, one of her new kindergarten teachers. She got to eat some snacks, meet some friends, and get familiar with her new classroom.

We were so proud of her for being so good that afterward, Chris and I took her out to a lunch restaurant of her choice. She chose Pho. Here she is with her proud Daddy. We're so proud of our big kindergarten girl! This has all gone my so fast.

Six years of truly, madly, deeply

2008-08-22T19:05:00.001-07:00

We celebrated our six year anniversary tonight with a date out to a nice Lebanese restaurant in Tyson's Corner. For those who don't have the benefit of living in the DC area, that's a very upscale shopping district just outside the beltway on the Virginia side. For some reason we can't figure out, it doesn't feel like we've been married for six years. For me, it's pretty clear we've been married forever, since I can't remember a time when we weren't together. Christine tells me that can't possibly be the case, since we still feel and act like newlyweds we must have been married just last week.

After we got home, we let Laine play photographer and get some shots so we can always remember how crazy in love we still were after six years. I think we look pretty good, except for that silly looking guy in the blue shirt.

Laine's Rambling Insomnia Monologue

2008-08-21T18:56:00.000-07:00

Laine is having some trouble sleeping tonight and while she's always very talkative, she gets ultra talkative when she's exhausted. The one-sided conversation is getting somewhat amusing, so I'll write it down for you:

Do you know that I've seen FOUR frogs? It's true. Well, maybe I've seen three frogs. One of them might have been a frog, or it might have been a jumping caterpillar. I'm not SO sure. Hmm but it was jumping, so that probably means it was a frog, right? Heeyyyyy what are you writing? You're writing something about me, aren't you? I can tell because it has the word 'Laine' in it. What are you writing about me, mom? 'Laine is having some trouble sleeping tonight and while she's always very tt...' Mom! I can't read this because I don't know that word! Oh. Talkative. Now I get it. Wow! This is all about me? Aren't you done writing that now? You just like to write write write. How come wolves like to howl at the moon? Does the word 'wolf' have a letter 'L' in it because it sounds wwwoooLf? When I'm six I'm probably gonna lose all my teeth. Hey! Did you just write that when you're six, you're gonna lose all your teeth? That's Brrdiculous because you're never going to be six! What's all this nonsense, mom? Hey, will it take me 11 more years until I'm sixteen? Dad told me when I'm sixteen I might learn how to drive. How come you keep writing and writing and writing and writing?

I'm writing down what you say because it's so funny.

You're writing down what I say? Whoa. I bet that's a lot of stuff. Man, it's like I'm never gonna get to sleep. Is it past midnight yet? I could stay up a whole hour.

Please don't.

Or two. One time, I had a nap for two whole hours. Oh, I know I'm not supposed to put my fingers in your face. I forgot I shouldn't do that. *giggles* Oh, I know I'm not supposed to... *giggles* Oh man! This is so funny! Stop writing what I say! Man, I'll never get to sleep!! This is just so funny! I'm so funny! heheheehe. Oh, I know I'm funny. I know I shouldn't be laughing so much, but this is so uuhhhlarious! Is that a giggle? You wrote down my giggle? HAHAHAHA

Laine, okay seriously now try to sleep, ok? It's way past your bedtime.

I can't! I was giggling so much.

Good, you should be all worn out.

I'm not. How'd you know how to write giggles? Bublabublabula. Mom, I'm serious. How'd you know how to write giggles?

I'm just smart.

Oh so it's just cuz you're smart. Well, I'm smart. I know I'm smart. Hey, you keep writing things I say. Oww! I hurt my eye! Haha I'm pretending I hurt my eye to be silly! *sigh* oh man, it's just a night I can't sleep. What does dad call that again when he can't sleep? Kasomnia?

Insomnia.

I have INSOMNIA!!!!!!!!!!

What are you gonna do about it?

I'm gonna not sleep.

Why don't you think of a different solution?

I don't know. I'll run up and down the stairs 'til I'm tired! *panting* Okay well I don't want to do that anymore. Hey mom, actually I didn't just go up one flight of stairs. I did it more than once, it was just really fast. I think I'm about to have a knee cramp. Maybe cuz I stayed up so late. Hey, who's all this writing for anyway? Dad?

It's for our blog.

Let me see all the stuff you wrote. Wow, I talk a lot. Sometimes when I tell dad that I didn't brush my teeth, I'm just joking him and I really brushed my teeth.

Lainey? Do you think it's time to go to bed for real now?

I can't! I can not sleep.

Okay, I'm turning off the computer now. Time to close our eyes.

Okay you can do that. Time to close my ears? But I can't close my ears!

Read it again.

It says ears.

Look carefully.

Eyes. It says eyes. Oh, I can close my eyes, but I can't sleep!

Good night Laine.

Hmph.

Laine's Experiment

2008-08-20T19:15:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, Laine thought of a little experiment she wanted to do all on her own. She had a cup of ice and she wanted to see if it would melt faster if she put it outside in the sun. So she took her little cup of ice and left it out on the back deck.Well, she forgot about it until today and when she went out to check on it, all that was left was a few drops of water in the bottom of the cup. When I asked her what she thought happened to the melted ice, she responded, "Uhhh... Problee a raccoon drank it." So we had a little learning moment about evaporation.

James thought it was great.

Also, lately the girls have thought that it's a lot of fun to make home videos. Here's a sample of what our budding cinematographers are up to. Mostly, I delete them because they're just as absurd as the clip below, but I save a few of them so that they can look back and see just how ridiculous they are.

Eve's Pretending Games

2008-08-15T10:43:00.000-07:00

Today was a fairly typical day at our house, which means a day full of pretending. Out of all our kids, Eve seems to have the wildest imagination and is almost always pretending to be something or someone else. She started off the day wanting to be Mom. She asked me to style her hair into an 'exquisite hairdo' for the role, which I found hilarious since I haven't showered for two days and my hair is always in a messy ponytail.

Then we had a HUGE clean up effort. Our house looks about a hundred times better. Eve, oh excuse me, I mean Mom, helped by folding and putting away laundry. She amazingly did a good job. She really worked hard and told me she was 'figure-outing where all the clothes go.' Then, since all her toys were put away, she decided to make a pretending game out of my tubs of body butter.

I had no idea playing with body butter could be so fascinating! I have a little video clip of her playing, but it was too long to post, so I'll give you the highlights:

"Now, princess pink and princess shea butter are going to fight the bad guys! Oh, but here comes orange witchy, casting her spells to put people to sleep. She's doing her curse. Curse! Curse! Curse! Ha, now they're asleep, but then she decided to join the good guys. Now she is happy and content and she's gonna marry blueberry." This went on for a good 20 minutes before she got bored of the monologue and decided to make a Noah's Ark out of a laundry basket.

Next, Eve found Laine and convinced her to play ballerina princesses with her. First, they were pretending to be ballet princess Laine and ballet princess Eve, but then they decided that wasn't fun enough, so they swapped tutus and Laine became ballet princess Eve and Eve became ballet princess Laine. Here they are below. Ballet princess Laine is the one in the black tutu and ballet princess Eve is the one in the pink tutu.

And that's been our day so far. Filled with imagination.

Updated Bradley Family Rules

2008-08-12T18:41:00.000-07:00

Dear friends and family,

The past couple of weeks, I've been out of school and other than when I'm at work, I've pretty much been hanging out with the kids all day long. This increased exposure to my children has made me realize that we've been in need of a few new house rules. If you are a guest in our home, these rules also apply to you, so please pay attention to the following changes:

***UPDATES TO THE BRADLEY FAMILY RULES***
I. Making a noise that a dying pig would make is not a preferable method of communication. However, we the parental unit, Mr. and Mrs. Bradley, acknowledge that making dying pig noises are warranted and even permissible in certain situations. These situations are limited to:
1. Getting attacked by hungry piranhas
2. Being approached by someone who is trying to abduct you
3. Trying to get your mom out of a speeding ticket by annoying the cop and getting him to feel
sorry for your mom
Dying pig noises are not permitted in the vast majority of situations including (but not limited to) the following:
1. Having your sister point at you.
2. Having your sister sing the "Chin up" song from Charlotte's Web while you're trying to sing the Trogdor the Burninator song
3. Running out of trail mix when you really want to eat trail mix
4. Getting a smooch from your baby brother while you're trying to slide down the banister

II. You may change clothes TWICE during the day. Once in the morning to change out of your pajamas and into your play clothes, and once in the evening to change back into your pajamas. If it is necessary to change into a costume to get in character for a pretending game, the costume is not considered dirty and may be folded up and returned to the appropriate drawer upon return to regular activity. Discarded clothing is NOT to touch the floor. Boredom or disdain for one's underpants is an insufficient reason for changing them. Outfits worn for less than 20 minutes are not considered dirty unless visibly soiled. Dirty clothing is to be put directly in the hamper. Clean clothing is to remain in it's drawer unless it is being worn.

III. You may take a dump in one of two places:
1. The loo (preferred)
2. Your diaper (permissible for incontinent family members and house guests)
While we're on the subject of relieving ourselves, let's make it clear that everyone is entitled to the same amount of privacy. It is unfair to expect one member of the family to endure an audience during tampon insertion while another family member makes the dying pig sound when anyone comes within 5 feet of the bathroom door.

IV. The floor is not a trash can. Neither is the sink, the nightstand, the bookshelves, the bed, the hallway, the staircase, or the dining room table. The only thing that is a trash can is the trash can. Kindly remember this when finding a home for your half-eaten banana.

V. In this family, we descend the staircase in a civilized manner. In this case, the term 'civilized' is defined as: 'doing things in a way that does not bore holes through your clothing or cause concussions.' Also, please remember that while equipment such as wagons, blankets, and plastic bags may seem to enhance and shorten the duration of the stair descending experience, these objects can cause injury when used by the smallest members of the family. Legs are perfectly suitable for accomplishing the task of transporting oneself between floors.

We appreciate your efforts in observing the rules of our home. We look forward to hosting you in our home.
Respectfully yours,
The maternal unit

P.S. The other day, Eve said something really funny. We were going to the bookstore to pick out some new reading material and she said to me, "Yay! We're going to my favorite place! Barnestantinoble!

James Almost Passed His First Anatomy Exam...

2008-08-06T21:02:00.000-07:00

...But he missed the bonus question at the end. The funny thing was, after we took this video, he climbed on my lap and wanted to watch it and when we got to the end when I asked "Who loves Mama?" He smiled at the screen and raised his hand and said "Me! Me! Me!"

Grocery Shopping with the Kids

2008-08-04T20:02:00.000-07:00

I really don't like going to the store with the kids. Chris totally loves it. Sometimes even when he could just grab milk and bread from the store on his way home, he'll actually come home, take the kids, and then go to the grocery store. Even when he's going to get tons of groceries, he'll convince me to let him at least take one little buddy with him. Today, I wound up taking the kids to Trader Joe's with me to get some bare necessities and I saw how it could maybe be sort of cute.
The people who work at Trader Joe's think it's pretty cute too. The kids always come away with balloons and smiles.

The Monkeys Make Monkey Bread

2008-07-29T17:56:00.000-07:00

Chris is totally the funnest dad. Tonight after James went to bed, he organized a monkey bread making assembly line and he and the underpants brigade made two loaves of ooey gooey fabulous monkey bread.

This morning, an unprecedented event occurred. The kids let us sleep in until 10:30! Chris was late for work. James had woken up at his usual time of 5:45, but I snuggled him and fell asleep and then Laine must have come in and taken him away to play with their castle or something. This has never happened before! We usually don't set alarms because we've always been able to count on them to get us up at an unreasonable hour. It felt soooooo good to sleep in.

We spent the afternoon playing pretending game after pretending game. The games included "Toad Family, Toad Friends," "Dr. Laine Gets an Owie," and "The Royal Puppy Meets Princesses." They can be so silly. Oh, yesterday Laine was really fussy and was yelling for like 45 minutes. While I was trying to work with Laine, Eve went and got the phone and called Chris to gleefully tattle on Laine. This made Laine furious and she swiped the phone from Eve and called Chris back to tattle on Eve for being a tattle tale. Then Eve was in hysterics because she thought Chris would side with Laine and give her a spanking. Then everyone was having a fit except for James. We have our good days and bad days around here.

You're so vain, you probably think this sign is about you

2008-07-27T22:34:00.000-07:00

So the other day, we went to check out some stuff at IKEA and came home with this chalkboard that you put on the wall where you can stash your mail and write reminders on the board and stuff. After the kids went to bed, we hung it up and Chris wrote a little note for me that said "I love you Beauty." The next morning, the girls woke up and crawled into bed with us and said, "Um, so we saw the sign that Dad wrote, but he accidentally forgot that he has three beauties not just one, plus he has a beautiful boy. But you don't have to worry because we fixed his sign."
As promised, when I went downstairs, the sign had been fixed with an additional "s" and some chalk scribbles. What a hoot. This weekend, we did some fun things. We went to Chris's company picnic and had some food and fun. Eve zonked out on the way there.

Here's James rocking out on the swing. He's my happy little love. He was the center of attention at the picnic. This boy can win over anybody's heart.

After the picnic, I took the girls on a little mommy daughter outing. We had some ice cream and then stopped at the carnival going on at the local high school.

The kids really liked going on the speedboat ride.

There's not a whole lot else to report. I can't remember if I mentioned earlier that Laine lost her other front bottom tooth, so now she has a gaping hole in her mouth and a slight lisp. She thinks it's great that she can drink through a straw with her teeth shut. Eve's reading away as always and Laine's actually been making more frequent attempts to read, which is great. James is a snuggly bundle of love who likes to give kisses.

James is Getting Smarter

2008-07-23T20:59:00.000-07:00

For a while, we were worried that James would never talk or communicate in ways other than smiling and grunting. However, in the last month or so he's really made significant progress in his communication skills. We've just figured that boys are a bit slower than girls in this area, but we're thrilled that he's learning to talk and that he's such a cute wonderful, loving boy. Lately, when asked to identify his body parts, he's gotten his hair, head, eyes, ears, nose, mouth, fingers, belly button and toes correct about 80% of the time. More importantly, he is almost always able to correctly answer the important question I ask him in this video.Here's a picture of James getting mad at Laine for trying to take away his book. He's learning to fight back. Not sure if that's a good thing.

And here, our little boy enjoys a scalp massage from Eve. His listening comprehension skills have really gotten better. It's so cute, every time I say I'm going to take a shower, he grins, claps his hands, and runs to the bathtub and climbs in. When I say, "James, you need to take your clothes off first," he looks at me sort of curiously and then starts tugging at his clothes. Also, if you say "James, did you do a poo-poo?" He peers down the front of his pants, gives you a satisfied grin, and confirms, "Po popo po" while patting his little bum. How could you not love this little guy?

Laine's Poetry Corner

2008-07-22T17:22:00.000-07:00

She's been reading some Shel Silverstein lately, she remembers most of the words to several of them.

I think the correct wording was "Where the heck's the toilet plunger gone?" but I like Laine's version better.

In other news, the girls have decided that Eve is the baby princess, Laine is the big sister princess, and James is the Royal Puppy. He does a pretty good job of saying "oof, oof" on command now, I just hope they don't start tossing him dog biscuits when he rolls over.

Cousins playing dress up

2008-07-16T19:52:00.000-07:00

I just had to post this picture because it's so stinkin' cute and funny! Mel just sent it to me. She took it when we were up in Rochester with them for Thanksgiving last fall. The cousins decided to have a little dress up party. The lamb costume that Eve is in is THE famous lamb costume that Sam loves to pair with his frog rain boots.

Fireflies

2008-07-12T17:57:00.000-07:00

Fireflies might be one of the most magical things in the world. I had never encountered them until this summer after we moved to Virginia. Tonight was the girls' first time seeing them. Our backyard woods were just lit up with the little sparkling bugs and we spent a good hour watching them in awe.

I think in this clip you can actually see some of them. They're sort of hard to capture on film. We feel so lucky to have a backyard forest full of frogs and fireflies and other ingredients to childhood magic.

Swing

2008-07-12T17:30:00.000-07:00

So we put in a swing today. It's great. Laine is a swinging champ. Eve is a grump. Watch the videos, I think it's all in there.

Also, our woods are full of fireflies, which is at least 12 kinds of awesome.

It's Out

2008-07-09T16:13:00.000-07:00

A couple of weeks back, Laine discovered to her delight that one of her teeth had turned wiggly on her. Pretty much every day since she's been asking if her tooth was ready to come out yet and regaling us with stories of how fun it will be to have her shiny new big-girl teeth. So on Monday we noticed it was just about ready to pop out, and I offered to give it a yank with a pair of pliers. Laine was sure that would hurt a lot, so she didn't go for it. Didn't go for Mom's offer to snag it with a loop of string either. Just as well, if she'd gone for it we wouldn't have been able to get any good pictures featuring the floppy front tooth.

Laine just loves the extreme close-ups.

So here's the little guy the next day, out all by itself with no help. I thought the tooth fairy should bring a quarter, Christine thought she should bring a billion dollars plus the contents of a toy store and the cosmetics counter at the the department store. We settled on a buck.

And here's our little buddy, a buck richer and a whole lot sillier looking.

The other kids are still cute too, we didn't forget them in all the toothy excitement.

James has magic powers to know when the camera is about to shoot, and cleverly turns his head almost every time. Here's one of the few where you can actually see part of his face.

Ok Kids, Time for Night Night

2008-06-29T18:51:00.000-07:00

Bedtime is a much anticipated time at our house. Well, for the parents anyway. I look forward to bedtime for many reasons. Like for example, I can't wait to check my e-mail without someone banging on the keyboard and trying to close my laptop as I type. Also, I can eat without having the bite of food stolen from my fork on its way to my mouth. Perhaps the best part about night time is peeing with the door closed. These are just a few of the many reasons that we (and by me, I mean Chris) are so willing to put up with the stress and nonsense that comes with bedtime.James is a good boy at bedtime (and at pretty much all times). He doesn't like to nap, so by the end of the day he's exhausted. Sometimes he'll whimper for a minute while Chris carries him up the stairs, but usually he waves good night, folds his hands for a little prayer, and zonks out. Tonight he fell asleep with his Sunday shirt on.

The girls are a whole nother story. They will do annnyyyything to get to stay up later and play. If you give them an inch, they'll take a mile, which is why Chris has always been the boss of the bedtime. He rules with a firm hand, and this results in slightly less craziness. He usually lets them read a little bit before bed as long as they brush their teeth in a timely manner. They really like this, but it can get out of hand. Lately, they've been sleeping in the basement guest bedroom to beat the heat, and the other night, Chris heard a horrible sound like a flock of seagulls gone mad. He goes to check it out and the girls had invented a game called "Scream Reading." Instead of reading the words in a normal voice, yup you guessed it, you scream them while the other child has a fit of giggles.

Oh, I almost forgot I have some sad news. Laine's two front bottom teeth are loose!!! =*( I'm so sad. I thought I had at least another year before she started losing teeth and looking all goobery. I'm too young to be a tooth fairy! I'm going to take a lot of pictures this week so that we can remember Laine with all her little baby teeth.

How can kids this smart be this dumb?

2008-06-28T16:40:00.001-07:00

I know all parents think their kids are the smartest kids ever to walk the earth, so of course Christine and I believe that about ours. We even think we have some good reasons for believing it, like Eve the wonder three-year-old who is already reading somewhere beyond the first grade level, or Laine already curious about the origin of the Roman alphabet and regularly asking deep probing questions into the nature of reality. James we're still not sure on, he mostly just walks around grunting, and most of the time when I ask him to point to his nose he puts his finger in his ear, but two out of three isn't too bad.

So why do these girls of our that we so often think are so bright still do such colossally stupid things?

Eve, on the one year anniversary of Laine getting in the biggest trouble of her life for painting up our old house with Mom's nail polish, cleverly decides that it's her turn to do the same and gives our master bathroom a full service pedicure, including toilets, mirrors, and air vent covers.

Laine's mouth runs 24-7 with no end in sight to the constant stream of questions, trivia, and nonsense. One evening last week, after a particularly hard day at work I was in the downstairs play room blowing off some steam playing a game on the computer. Laine, following her usual pattern, pulled up to the chair next to me and started up a conversation. I say conversation, but what I really mean is she started talking in my general direction and only paused once every 5 minutes or so ask a random question about geography or why the color red is called red. After about half an hour of this I was done. I was ready for some quiet time. I gently explained to her that I was very tired from working and I would like to have just a few minutes of quiet.

About ten seconds later the mouth started up again.

I explained to her a with a little less subtlety that it was time for daddy to have some quiet time and I really really needed her to let daddy have quiet for about five minutes.

About ten seconds later the mouth started up again.

I explained to her rather forcefully that if she couldn't be quiet for five minutes there would be very big trouble.

About ten seconds later the mouth started up again.

I'd had it. I was through. A huge ham fist slammed down on the desk with a resounding bang and the fierce roar of Dad was heard throughout the house. Little tears welled up in Laine's innocent eyes and she whimpered out, "I just wanted to talk to you Daddy." Well what's a dad supposed to do with a response like that? I held her on my lap and consoled her and explained to her that I loved talking with her but that I had had a very hard day at work and I needed some peace and quiet. She nodded understanding and settled down next to me in companionable silence.

About ten seconds later the mouth started up again.

To my credit I did not kill her.

I would really like to think that our girls are brilliant, but I'm starting to wonder if that's just standard wishful parent thinking. The evidence against it just keeps piling up almost as fast as the toys on the living room floor.

We Love Daddy

2008-06-14T21:28:00.000-07:00

Oh, hello! I'm the lovely Princess Eve. And I'm Cowgirl Laine. And we're here to tell you why we love our dad with all our hearts.Hehe ha Dadadadadadadadadadadada. Arghooooooo. Dada! *smile*Our Dad is the best dad in the world. He's always taking us on really fun outings, like to Costco or Trader Joe's where we get free balloons simply for having the cutest dad ever. Daddy is also the world's best cook. And when dad cooks, it's always FUN! Like for example, today for a special treat, Daddy made me a bunny jello jiggler.Yeah! Um umm umm and um Daddy made me an awesome butterfly jello jiggler! It was SO COOL! And we even got to go to the grocery store and pick out the flavor of Jello. Plus I love dad because he's always there for me. Even when he's at work, I can always call him at work to tell on Eve or to have him help me troubleshoot the Game Cube. Once, I tried to ask mom to help to help me, but she was like, "If it's not sold at Sephora, I don't know how to use it." I told her if she doesn't know how to do something, she should just google it. That's how Daddy got so smart.Heeheheheheeeheehahaha Aaaagggagaga Dadadada! Heehehahahahaha!!!! Dada!Dad's the best. Today was the day before Father's Day and we should have been doing good things for him all day, but instead, he fixed a leak in the basement, read us fun books, took us on outings, made us treats, and told mom to take the day to recover from the week with a little retail therapy. I'm not sure what that even means, but I think it has something to do with Sephora. I'm just glad I don't have a dad like Matilda's dad. That would be bad! Daddy tells us great bedtime stories every night about Princess Laine and Princess Eve and the space monsters or dragons, or whatever we choose to be in the story. Yeah, and Dad has an amazing tolerance for messes! He thinks it's great when we make big forts with all the blankets or build towers for our bunnies. Oh, we'd also like to take this time to make a shoutout to the best grandfathers in the world: Grandpa and Habojee. You guys are the best! Happy Father's Day!!! We love you soooo much!

Tweedle Glee and Tweedle Glum are at it again

2008-06-10T20:26:00.000-07:00

So I worked last night, but I'd promised the girls I'd take them to the park today so I got them to agree to watch an episode of Teen Titans while I took a little nap this morning. Well, I'd been asleep for about 25 minutes when the girls came into my bedroom to start a bath. This is my cue to bolt out of bed to see what's wrong. Well, poor little James is trying to get in the tub with the girls, his body covered in fragrant slime. I questioned the girls, got him washed off, and ran downstairs. Eve had gotten my dish soap out and poured it ALL over the entire kitchen. Floor, table, chairs, kid table, James's head, carpet, everything! I was livid. I ran back upstairs and gave Eve a choice: Time out or spanking. She's like, whiiiiinnnnneeeeee. Laine, ever the protective sister, started panicking and trying to steer her to the correct answer.

"Eve, just pick the time out! Time outs don't hurt at all!"

"I HATE time outs! They take forever!"

"Hmm, well a spanking is very fast. You could just pick the spanking then."

"NO!"

At least I had a good excuse to not take them to the park in 97 degree humid weather.

Luckily, Chris came home and handled the clean up and punishment. The rest of the afternoon was silly and cute. I noticed later that the other thing they had done during my nap was eat a large portion of the chocolate peanut butter bars I'd made the day before.

"Laine, did you guys eat all these treats?"

*grins sheepishly* In an innocent sing-song voice, responds "Aaaaacccccidentally!!"

"You accidentally ate all these chocolate peanut butter bars, huh?"

*Nods emphatically* "By accident. Yeah."

"So, what, you were lying on the slimy kitchen floor with your mouth open when all of a sudden, the chocolate peanut butter bars spontaneously fell off the counter and landed in your open mouth? Repeatedly?"

"Umm, I just told you. It was by accident."

Then they did the underwear march around the house a few times, which is where they strip down to their undies and march around the house chanting non-rhythmically "March! March! We do the underwear march! March!" And they invented really silly princess games and acted ridiculous.

Here is a picture of some members of our family who did not cause trouble today.

Here's Eve trying to look all innocent with her piggytails, pretending that isn't a destroyer of houses.And here's Laine having a ball at her kindergarten play day last week where she got to ride the bus, meet some kindergarten teachers and friends, and play in the gym and music room.

Dear Mis PIMP

2008-06-03T18:27:00.001-07:00

Eve and Laine love their pre-school. They love playing with friends, they love recess, they love their teachers. Eve's teacher, Miss Alma, is about 12 months pregnant now and we figure she'll burst any minute. Christine invited the girls to help her write a congratulations card for when the baby comes. Laine sat down at the desk with the letter and the pen and addressed the card to "Dear mis alma," but the directions on some of her letters went a little bit funny. I laughed so hard I cried and I was a little worried I might suffocate before the effects of reading Laine's card wore off.

Take a look:

Update: I think it's all under control now, plus James is a gross little boy

2008-06-02T10:57:00.001-07:00

After several days of airing out, baking soda treatments, Febreze, Oust, and running the AC non-stop to dehumidify the air, I believe we have finally conquered the mildew stench that came from the great bathtub adventure in the middle of the downstairs family room. The little clowns seem to have learned their lesson since we haven't seen any new swimming pools on the floor for a few days.

James has found some new favorite and gross toys: the toilet and the insoles of my shoes. We have to keep all the bathroom doors shut because James likes to sneak away and play splashing games in the toilet bowl. James has been spending a lot of time in just his diaper lately since I gave up redressing him every time one of the girls leaves the bathroom door open. Every day for the last week or so when I go to put on my shoes I have to look around for my insoles, which are usually within a few feet of my shoes. I tell James "No!" in a very stern voice, but when I turn around, there he is, poking his little hand into my shoe and pulling out the ol' Dr. Shoals. Today I'm lopsided, because one of them disappeared completely. I just hope doesn't start combining the two new interests.

You can spank the tar out of em, but you can't spank out stupid

2008-05-31T21:16:00.000-07:00

Laine and Eve have been causing a good deal of trouble lately. So the other day, they had their little neighbor friend over and were playing in the basement while I was upstairs with James trying to read. After a while, I noticed that it sounded like water had been running for a while, so I thought I'd investigate. As soon as she hears my footsteps, she screams out, "HIDE!!!" and I see three little naked bums scurrying off to hide under various pieces of furniture. Not reassuring.

"Umm, girls?"

Squelch Squerch. *Looks down at feet*

"Oh my gosh! Why is the whole basement all wet?"

*giggle giggle*

"GET OUT! I can see you! No hiding from mom!"

As it turns out, the girls were trying to make a bathtub out of a laundry basket so that they could take a bath while they watched Snow White. Eve's idea. Of course. They'd been filling up their beach pail and any other toys they could find that would hold water and carrying it from the bathroom sink to the laundry basket, which was lined in a pillow and baby blankets to try to prevent leakage. Well the whole basement was wet and yucky and now it smells bad. When Chris got home, he gave them three sound spankings each.

The next night while I'm at work...

*ring ring*

A disgruntled sounding "Hello?"

"Hey lover, how's your night going?"

"Uhhh you don't want to know."

"What happened?"

"The girls tried to make a bathtub in their bedroom."

"What?! After they got spanked for doing the same thing yesterday?"

"Yup. Not the brightest bulbs."

"Oh my gosh, I'm sorry I bore you mentally deficient children. And I'm sorry you had to clean it up alone!!"

"It's okay. I gave them four spankings this time."

So they haven't tried to make any bathtubs since then, but Laine's been playing these little mind games with me. Like the other day, we were having girls' reading time and we were reading Pippi Longstocking. Both girls were really into the story, but Eve asked me to stop reading for a second while she went to get a blanket. She said "Don't start the story without me!" and hurried off. As soon as she's gone, Laine whispers in my ear. "You don't have to listen to her. She's not the boss of you. Just start reading. You can't let Eve boss you around like that." What a hoot. At least James is still a good boy. Lately, he's been pretending to participate in conversations with us. We'll ask him questions and he smiles and nods or shakes his head and mumbles. It's so cute.

Happy Memorial Day

2008-05-26T19:27:00.000-07:00

As the weather has been warming up, we've been spending more and more time outdoors exploring the parks and playgrounds in the area. Today, since it was Memorial Day, Chris took the day off of work and we hung out, played, ate, and got a few errands done.

You would be so proud of James. He's been so mobile and brave lately. The other day, we were at the little playground in our neighborhood and he climbed all the way up the steps, got to the slide, turned on to his tummy and slid down the big twisty slide all by himself without any help. He did cry when he got to the bottom, but he immediately did it again and again so I don't think he minded too much. Just the first two times sort of scared him. Now if only we could get him to say a word besides Mmmaammommummm.Laine's a regular playground pro. She's really psyched about kindergarten. In two weeks, she has a special orientation where she gets to ride the bus and everything. She can't wait.Eve is so funny. When they're not fighting, Laine and Eve say the funniest things to each other at bed time and while driving around in the car. For example, we went out to lunch today and their conversation went like this:

Laine: Eve, will you promise me something?

Eve: Maybe. What's the promise?

Laine: A pinky promise.

Eve: Nope.

Laine: What about a thumb promise then? Would you promise me a thumb promise?

Eve: No, I won't promise you a thumb promise.

Laine: Middle finger promises, then?!

Eve: All right, all right, I'll middle finger promise with you.

Then they hook middle fingers and shake. Later, someone, I can't remember who, said something really clever, I can't remember what, so Chris says, "You guys are so precocious." Laine shouts from the backseat, "HEY! We're not precocious?! Stop saying that.... Uh what does precocious even mean anyway? Is that even a real word?"

Oh, and the "Do Not Wet The Bed" sign totally works! I think I need to post a few more signs around the house. Like maybe ones that say "Stop Leaving Crap Everywhere" and "Don't Go Outside Naked." Things I never thought I'd actually have to remind them of, but do on a regular basis.

I'm a Little Embarrassed to Even Have This Sign Up

2008-05-19T18:12:00.000-07:00

Warning! What you read below may shock and appall you! Readers with sensitive stomachs, irritable bowels, or who are prone to nausea when exposed to descriptions of childhood bodily functions and the misuse thereof should stop reading now.

Yes, what you are looking at is a picture of the sign that we made in order to help a certain member of our family who is literate, but sometimes incontinent, to remember to get out of bed and onto the potty before peeing first thing in the morning. It's kind of ridiculous that somebody who is clever enough to read signs and follow directions still wets the bed about 25-30% of mornings, but we're hoping that seeing this sign upon awakening will remedy the situation.

The girls were really naughty today, especially Laine. She's just been really defiant and pushing boundaries. We've found that sometimes when the girls get like this, it helps to ask them to perform a skit demonstrating good vs. bad ways to behave toward others. Here they're demonstrating how to act good and happy.

Here's they're showing us an example of the type of wild and crazy behavior that is not tolerated in moving vehicles in the Bradley family, yet somehow seems to occur anyway.

And here is James. He's saying, "Look at me. I'm so perfect! I never do anything naughty. Gagagoogoo. I'm so cute."

Happy 5th Birthday, Laine!

2008-05-17T13:18:00.000-07:00

Christine: Here's our Laine when she was a newborn baby. I wish I had a picture of me pregnant with her, but I don't. It was the best pregnancy ever! I was super busy and it flew by. I started having early labor a couple of days before Laine was born. At my baby shower that the Bradley aunts threw for me, I was telling everyone how I was so sure I was going to deliver long after my due date and how I thought I was just having some Braxton-Hicks. Well it shows how much I know, because Laine arrived the next day. She was the cutest baby ever, but she yelled an awful lot!

Christian: Yup, she yelled pretty much non-stop for about the first year of her life. As I recall she did take a break at about three months to catch her breath, and another one about six months after that for a graham cracker snack, but it was pretty much perma-yell for a year or so. Fortunately, all that lung power she developed didn't go to waste, she now uses it for her non-stop stream of questions and conversation

Here's our big five year old girl getting ready to blow out candles. She opted for cupcakes rather than a traditional birthday cake and Christine whipped up a great big batch. Christian contributed to the festivities by going to the store for sprinkles.

We went to the Smithsonian National Zoo for Laine's birthday outing. James is usually really good in the sling, but today, he wanted to walk like everyone else. This is a picture of one of the orangutans we saw there.

We saw lots of small mammals, birds, reptiles, tigers, lions, elephants, pandas, you name it!

When we got home, Eve helped Laine open some more presents. She already has a ton of fun presents from our friends and family in Salt Lake, but she got a few more today including a cool set of Lincoln Logs. Christian almost got legos for her instead, but Lincoln Logs hurt your feet less when you step on them and we haven't quite figured out how to get the twin tornadoes to put stuff back in the box when they're through with it.

We ended up bringing home the orangutan from the zoo. Here he is saying, "Oooh oooh ah ah, please take me back to the zoo!"

Happy Birthday, Lainey girl. You're the sweetest five year old ever. You're a wonderful big sister and you're so smart and responsible. We are so lucky to have you in our family. We love you!

Eve's Idea of Inspirational Literature

2008-05-05T20:16:00.001-07:00

Ramona Quimby has been a long-time favorite heroine at our house. We've read and re-read most of Beverly Cleary's books to our girls, but the scene that delights them the most is the one in "Ramona and her Mother" where Ramona gets immense satisfaction from squeezing out an entire tube of toothpaste into the bathroom sink.

So today, Eve tried it out for herself. Luckily, Laine, being quicker than Beezus, ratted her out before she was able to squeeze the whole tube out. I considered Mrs. Quimby's punishment of saving the toothpaste in a ziplock bag and making only Ramona use it, but the thought of all those germs hanging out and growing in a bag by the bathroom sink sounded too nasty. Instead, we gave her a stern talking-to with the threat of a severe spanking if she every pulled a stunt like that again.

Leaving on a jet plane

2008-05-05T08:39:00.001-07:00

The girls are getting very excited for our upcoming trip to Salt Lake. They were telling me all about how they were going to fly in an airplane and which stuffed animals they wanted to bring. Hopefully this flight will go better than last time, when we had to drag Eve kicking and screaming across the tarmac at JFK because she and Laine got in a fight over who got to wear the travelling backpack just as the boarding line called our group up. Thanks goodness for direct flights this time.

On Saturday the girls and I went on a special outing to the store to get notebooks for a new scientific endeavor. The girls will be cataloging in words and pictures the plants and animals they find in the woods behind our house. Laine so far has a caterpillar and a squirrel drawn in her notebook, and Eve drew a flower but somehow it ended up on a loose paper on the desk instead of in her special notebook that we just got for her to draw it in. The drawing took about 5 minutes. Then they got bored of drawing and played with the gravel next to the back porch for about 3 hours. Sometimes it's tough to tell what will keep their attention.

Anyway, looking forward to seeing all our friends and family in Salt Lake this weekend. See you there.