The Gin game is on!

You may notice a new listing along the left side of my blog. I will explain. Joe and I have begun playing Gin every night after the kids go to bed if we are both around and I'm not asleep. So, obviously, it doesn't happen every night. But, in order to keep us both honest, I decided to keep a running total of wins on the blog. We are both, ummmm, just slightly competitive. Only slightly--we've only had to ban one game (Monopoly) from our house so far because it was determined that it wasn't healthy for our marriage if we continued playing it. And so, in the spirit of honest competition, each day I will provide the added updates to the wins just in case in a few months one of us is tempted to make claims about who is winning overall that maybe aren't necessarily true. (Just for your information, we played to 100 the first two games. This has been changed beginning in the third game so that the game can last more than 4 hands. The third game is currently in process. For the sake of my pride, I won't currently divulge the score. Besides, it's not over yet.)

My AWESOME present

This morning I received my early Christmas present, and Valentine's Day present, and Birthday present, and Anniversary present, and probably Christmas of 2008 present as well. My new dining room table arrived. I don't have the picture of it yet, but this occasion definitely deserves two blog posts and so I will post the picture in a different post. It is sooooo awesome! With the leaves it sits 10! So when we have people over now we can actually all sit at the table and not be scattered about the house on different seats. The only, only drawback is that I've become rather harsh with the children concerning the new table. It has been determined fairly quickly that bar stools for my kitchen counter are definitely going to be a necessity. I'll just have to find some place else to put the computer. Now, you know it is a big deal if I am actually sacrificing counter space that is currently used for my computer! That space has extremely high real estate value in this house. However, if it will keep my table and chairs pristine for centuries to come (yes, I am planning on willing them to my children, grandchildren and great grandchildren), then I am willing to make the sacrifice. The picture will arrive soon--I can tell you are all waiting with bated breath...

What every mother dreads hearing

Ashley's friend after school yesterday: "Mrs. Horn someone in my class threw up on someone in Ashley's class today"
My response (laughing): "EEEWWWW that is really, really gross. Ashley did that really happen?"
Ashley, very, very somber: "Yeah, that was Emma. She didn't feel very good"
My response (now feeling very sheepish and childish over initially laughing): "Yeah, I bet not."
Ashley, brightening a little: "It's okay now though. (The principal) cleaned it all up."

Only it was at this point that I was thinking, "No, it is not okay now". For at least two days now my family will have to put up with my paranoia that someone in my house is going to throw up. I HATE the stomach flu. So, I think last night alone I took one temperature (it was normal, but in my defense her cheeks were red), and asked 4 different times to various children "Does your stomach hurt? Do you feel okay?" It could be a long morning if anyone is dragging...

When the going gets tough...

I am potty training my almost 23 month old. I just wrote a note to a friend about it and it cracked me up so I decided to write about it here as well. This is the earliest I've ever tried to potty train a child, but I have caught myself a lot lately saying to Nathan "No, you cannot go to the potty." and then I catch myself saying "Self, what are you saying??!!" I think he has been watching his siblings go too many times. We try to keep a closed door policy in our house, but when you have 4 kids and the oldest is 6 it is difficult to enforce. This is especially true when Nathan sometimes likes to make a grand entrance just to say "hi". The other motivating factor is my sister. My sister has a little boy exactly one month older than my Nathan. He turns 2 on Friday (Happy Birthday, Luke!!!). And, you guessed it, he is almost completely potty trained at this point. Now granted he is a first born and he only has one sibling. But that sibling is still a baby and I figure if my sister can do it, surely, surely this experienced mom who has already potty trained 3 others should be able to do it. (Actually, I probably shouldn't count Sara & Ashley because they were so easy that it could probably be considered that they trained themselves. Someone once asked me about Ashley "How did you do it?"and my answer was "I have no idea!") And so, we are in day two of potty training. It is going well as long as I say "good boy!!" whenever he sits on the potty. He quite frequently reminds me that I need to say it. But you should probably check in with me next week, because my potty training motto seems to be "When the going gets tough, the tough quit potty training and try again later!"

The first pictures from inside our house

Well, I finally got part of my house clean enough to take some pictures. I don't have the pictures organized on the walls. I just kind of put them up because I figured they were safer there than on the floor. At some point we will be getting some bookcases and that will help determine where the pictures go. So, here is part of our new house:



Our living room: view from the front entry way

Our living room: view from the kitchen

Our entry way and dining room: view from the living room

Our kitchen: view from the dining room

We were getting ready for small group when I took these pictures. At some point in the next couple of weeks we will be getting a new dining room table. So you will get to see more pictures then. I also need to get better pics of the kitchen. It is fairly large and these don't really do it justice.

Happy Birthday to You

Nathan learned how to sing "Happy Birthday to You" when Joe recently celebrated his 34th birthday. The only problem is that we aren't sure he knows exactly what or why he is singing. Recently we have noticed that he always sings it when he sees fire. We did our cook out last weekend and Nathan thought we were celebrating a birthday. I lit the stove yesterday (it's a gas cook stove) and evidently that signified to Nathan that someone must be celebrating a birthday. And so, we've been celebrating a lot lately.

Today's quote from Sara

In observing her parents, Sara said "What are you doing?!?! It looks like you are chomping on each other. That is so gross!!!!!"