Kin Konfustion

The other day, the kids and I were waiting for the FedEx man to show up in the car while we were parked in the driveway. It's a long, sort of ridiculous story, but the short version is that I didn't want to get the kids out because it was very close to the time he normally comes by. As soon as I got the package I needed to deliver it to someone...it was a Christmas card order so they needed them asap. I knew as soon as I got the kids out of the car and into the house, everyone would get tired and want a nap, then the FedEx man would show up. Then I'd have to get everyone back in the car to deliver the package. So we waited in the driveway. While we waited, Anna was asking who we were waiting for. I was telling her about the FedEx man, whose name is John. She knew him since he's been a regular at our house the past couple of months. I bet the neighbors think we're getting drugs delivered or something. But anyway, I was telling Anna about his job, etc. She started asking things like, "His name is John? ...like Reagan's daddy?" And I'd answer, "Yes, they have the same name. Reagan's daddy's name is Jon. He's your uncle Jon." We went back and forth and she seemed to be getting a little confused by all the different names of family members for some reason.

After 30 minutes of waiting in the driveway, I gave in. Grey had a dirty diaper and Anna was done. So we unloaded and went into the house. We were inside for about an hour when the FedEx man, John, showed up. Anna raced to the door as usual and as I opened the door Anna yells, "Are YOU my Daddy?!" I was trying to talk over Anna since I was mortified that we hadn't cleared all that confusion up in the car. I don't know if John heard her, but I'm not sure how he didn't.

John came again the day before yesterday and of course, Anna runs to the door. I open the door and again, "Are YOU my Daddy?!" He heard it that time and Anna's real dad (whose name is not John) was home. He yells back at Anna as I laugh trying to cover my embarrassment. John, the FedEx man laughed.

Today I turned "Bruce Almighty" on. It was on cable. Anna looks at Morgan Freeman and says, "Mommy, that's my grandpa....my other grandpa." What??

Mr. GQ

Elisabeth said that this is Grey's GQ pose. He's become quite the expert at pulling up onto the furniture. He's also a pro at smacking his head on things as he falls when his legs give out.

Fire Bugs.

They aren't as close as they look.

Gingerbread house.

...the intense concentration.

Our great friend, Teri, brought over a prebuilt gingerbread house complete with two bags full of decorations and little icing bags. I told Anna that she had to wait until her dad got home to decorate it. It was going to be a father/daughter project. I knew J would like to do that with her. So after asking me a gabillion times when Daddy was going to be home, or if she could go ahead and get started without him, he finally came home from work. After dinner they got started. It turned out very nice and Anna had a hard time leaving it alone. I think her finger was in her mouth licking off icing and other decorations every time I turned around.

J's fabulous wood pile "out back" made of pretzels.

Grey wanted to help.

Way behind...

Sorry folks, I'm WAY behind on posting. I'll have several new posts in a row soon. There are lots of pictures on my camera and computer that need to be uploaded, but I have been a little swamped lately. Stay tuned!

There are no secrets.

I had to give J his present early.  It's a long story...  but it came in two small boxes that were pretty obvious if they were wrapped in the original packaging.  So when I came back from the store and needed to wrap it somehow that he didn't know exactly what it was just from looking it after it was wrapped, I decided to do it the "nesting" way.  You know, the present, wrapped inside another present, wrapped inside another.  Anna helped.  She didn't really know what the gift was and I was careful not to tell her...or show her, just in case her dad decided to try to get it out of her before he opened it.  We wrapped the two small packages, packed them into a larger box, then wrapped it.  We packed that wrapped box into anther box, then wrapped it.  The boxes I happen to have were, of course, a diaper and wipes box.  When we got all the tape put on it (in places that didn't actually hold anything together, usually) and the purple bow that Anna chose (nice and manly!), we put it under the tree and waited for Daddy to come home.  As soon as he came home, Anna was ALL OVER the gift and was asking J to open it right away.  

Anna: DADDY!  OPEN your present!!!

Daddy: Are you sure it's not your present? (since it was purple and green, I guess)

Anna: NO!  It's YOURS!  I helped Mommy wrap it up!

Daddy: What's in the box?

Anna: It's a box, but there are no diapers in there!

Weird.

Lots of times, when everyone goes to bed, I need to unwind my brain and just sit in front of the tv and think about something other than kids, life, and/or photography.  So when I get caught up at night or when J just wants some darkness in the bedroom so he can sleep, I go to the living room and turn on the Science Channel, Discovery Health, or something like that...  Last night was no different and I watch something very strange.  Many times when I watch the Science Channel I end up rolling my eyes at all the talk about evolution or whatever.  But last night they had this thing on "Real Superhumans."  It was about people with genetic traits, or at least they thought, that were extraordinary.  

They had a man who could calculate enormous equations in his head.  And sometimes the equations weren't enormous, but the answers were.  Things like "what is 98,301 to the 12th power?", or "what's 39 divided by 4397?"  He could do it all in his head and name every number right of the decimal point.  Every number...in his head.  

They also had a man that was born without eyes who was a painter.  He painted landscapes, still-life, animals, and had a unique understanding of perspective that someone without the capabilities of sight could never be able to have.  He painted with his fingers and they showed him painting a seascape complete with waves crashing on rocks of a shoreline in the foreground and sailboats in the distance.  How in the world could he be able to do that?  

Another woman they talked about was one who had "combined senses."  I didn't know what that meant or even how that worked.  They described it as "seeing and tasting music."  Weird...  She says she can hear a note coming from anywhere, such as a dog barking, a rain drop, a skateboard rolling by.  She can see the color the note makes (which I totally don't understand), and even tastes what the note tastes like.  This is just bizarre.  They had an illustration, which I needed badly, about the time she figured out that she had this ability.  She said that she was sitting at an outdoor cafe with a friend when it started to rain.  As each drop fell onto the ground, onto a tea cup, a plate, on a plant leaf, she could hear the precise note it was making.  As she heard the note she saw a splash of color as it hit and tasted different things as she heard each drop.  She would hear a "G" see a splash of blue and taste a creamy taste.  (I don't know exactly if those are the combinations, but you get what I mean).  Crazy.  Then, of course, throughout the show, they were talking about being able to "generate" superhumans by locating the gene of which these people had in a lab.  Is that scary to anyone else?

...of all things...

This weekend while we were on our way back from the "trip", as Anna likes to call it, we stopped at a convenience store so I could get some snacks.  Anna loves popcorn and I saw this cute, vintage bag of kettle corn hanging next to the cashews.  I'm such a sucker for cool packaging, so I grabbed it.  This is probably the first time I've ever bought popcorn in a bag, since I think the whole idea of it is kind of gross.  It's just so "grandpa-ish", and frankly, it just doesn't sound good to me at all when you can have perfectly good, warm popcorn right out of the microwave.  Anna didn't end up eating this little red bag of kettle corn on the trip home so I saved it for later.  She was in her room the next day and asked for some popcorn.  I remembered that I had this bag and went to get it rather than popping another bag that she'd just eat about three handfuls of.  She tasted it, then asked for some "different popcorn."  She didn't like it.  I again wondered why I bought it in the first place and thought , "uh, yeah, it's popcorn IN A BAG....it's gotta be gross."  As I headed to the trash with it, I shook some into my palm and tossed it into my mouth.  It stopped in in my tracks.  It was SO good!  Could this be?  A non-grandpa-ish bag of pre-popped popcorn?  I didn't even like kettle corn either!  I inhaled the bag while I worked on some photography and after I tipped the bag up to get the rest of the crumbs the had settled into the seam at the bottom of the bag, I thought, "there is NO WAY I'll find this anywhere else since it came from a convenience store out in the middle of nowhere.  

The next day, the kids were at school and I was out looking for teachers gifts at World Market.  I turned down one of those weird food isles and there it was...  an entire section of these vintage red popcorn bags, all different flavors.  Well, not all the flavors were there.  It looked like others had discovered this delectable snack as well.  The kettle corn that I had loved was there.  I have no idea how much it is, but because the packaging is so cool, I'm sure it's too expensive.  I got one bag and it's sitting here, almost empty, while I write this.  (I got it yeaterday.)  I think I'll buy some stock...or just stock up.

Popcorn, Indiana

Baby food boycott.

Grey has a new trick.  He doesn't like baby food anymore...AT ALL, not even fruits.  I thought something was up when I gave him some bananas (in a jar) and he looked at me like I was crazy.  Anna ate anything I put in front of her, so when Grey started acting like this, I knew something weird was up.  Other moms say that it's normal for babies to decide that they like table food better, and who wouldn't?  It's just a new thing for me.  Last night he enjoyed some chicken parmesan with penne pasta, cucumbers, and some tomato.  He wore lots of it.

The REAL pioneer woman.

Yesterday was COLD and very windy.  The pyro in me longed for a fire to start and poke at...and burn things in.  One problem...no firewood.  My plan...to go into the forest out back and chop some wood.  Oh wait, I mean gather some sticks from the one dead tree that we cut down this summer.  We kept the wood to burn in our firepit thing outside, but never used it.  The pieces we cut were too large and wouldn't fit in out fireplace inside.  I went to get the chainsaw.  I bundled up, grabbed the best logs and started sawing.  We had the best fire ever.  I'll take a bow now.

I knew there was a reason...

As I was still annoyed by my decision to drive through Denton and not around it, we came across this creative place.  Mom said, "Huh, that's a weird combination."  I HAD to stop and take a shot of this.  I was in the far left hand lane, so drove up the road to shoot a 'U' and came back.  It was totally worth driving through all those stop lights just for this!  We didn't go in, but I thought about going to ask if they sold t-shirts.

Goof.

This was what Anna was doing while I shot some photos of the "treaf" on her house.

"Chwismas treaf"

Anna made a cute wreath at school on Tuesday.  We took it home and I set down it somewhere in the house intending on putting it up.  Later that evening Anna started asking about her "Chwismas treaf."  I had no idea what she was saying and we went back and forth trying to communicate.  I finally figured out that she was saying "wreath" but was getting "tree" and "wreath" confused.  I went to get the wreath and asked her what she wanted to do with it.  She said, "I wanna put it on my door..."  So I got the tape and headed to her bedroom.  I thought she meant her bedroom door.  She immediately started telling me that that wasn't the door she meant.  After going back and forth with her again, she finally showed me which door she meant.  She wanted it on the door on HER house.  So that's where we put it.  I saved it from the frigid wind storm this morning, thank goodness.  It would've been blown away by the 50mph winds.  Yuck.

"I'm SO excited ..."

Every time Anna sees Christmas decorations lately she says, "I'm SO excited it's Christmas DAY!" She still hasn't caught on to the difference between a "season" and a "day," even though we've tried to explain it to her several times; each time it being more of a let down than anything.  I think she'd rather us (and everyone else) keep all the Christmas stuff up year around.  But who could blame her?  J put up some awesome Christmas lights on the house with a big, glowing snowflake above our garage, and I put a smaller snowflake in Anna's window.  She thought that was pretty neato.  When we go to the mall, she points out almost every Christmas related thing.  She will probably be pretty sad when we have to take the tree down and move our furniture back.  I'm just glad that she will really have memories of this Christmas, including putting the star on top of the Christmas tree all by herself...with Daddy's help.  ;)

These are some of my new things I found in my decorations!  Pretty huh?  They got a little hot in the attic and melted to each other.  But they still look fine.  :)