my helpful hubby

happy halloween! bri-guy and the miss 2 years ago

I do 7+ loads of laundry a week. It is not entirely unlike me to putter out at the end of my shift leaving the last load lingering in the dryer. This morning, like the 3 before it, brian ventured to the garage to retrieve a clean pair of socks and underwear.

today is laundry day again. yeah! when it's all done, i think i shall return the delicates to the dryer. i'm curious to see how many more trips he'll make to the garage before utilizing the empty basket sitting next to the dryer and bring the lingering load back in.

the one and only pictureless post

this is my first pictureless post. i did this intentionally. i just want people to focus on what i have to say (please don't take offense- i love ya'll!). i hate using this venue to discuss such serious matters, but this seems to be the outlet of choice for spreading information like wild fire.

i have been upset that the LDS church, which i have always respected (and still do), has chosen to affiliate, support, and fund the misleading Yes on 8 campaign. i know people who are tele-marketing and door knocking, pushing the Yes campaign's inaccurate fear-driven information on anyone that will listen. there are 2 major misconceptions about prop.8 that a little bit of research can clear up.

1- if prop.8 fails our children will be taught about gay marriage in school. this is not true. california superintendent of schools jack o'connell and the california teachers association have come out strong to debunk this allegation. please see these orange county register and la times articles for more information.

2- if prop.8 fails churches will loose their tax-exempt status. this is also not true. there is paragraph after paragraph of legislation protecting religious freedoms. when gay marriage was legalized great efforts were taken to ensure that religious institutions would not have to change any of their policies or practices. their rights are being respected. click here for additional information.

prop.8 does nothing to protect religious freedoms or change what our children are taught in school. the only thing prop. 8 does is make it illegal for gay couples to enjoy the same rights and freedoms that heterosexual couples always have.

i for one can not wait for november 4th to come and go, so i can delete these posts and stop waisting my time thinking about stupid politics!

lady killer in a cast

levi had his arm casted the morning after the break- brian's 32nd b-day. he'll have it on for another 3 weeks before being downgraded to a brace.

the cast doesn't hold him back (at all!). he digs having daddy doodle on his arm. he's eating rather well with his left hand and as usual refuses to let anyone help him do anything. he quickly discovered the benefits of having a casted arm- weapon against the sisters and loud noise maker.

little lady killer.

come and gone

me & the glo mom 10/2008

g-ma glo and auntie tweece have come and gone. as usual they left us far better than they found us- the house is squeaky clean, the laundry's done, boxes are unpacked, the pantry is full, laughter enjoyed, date nights had, and i'm relaxed. life is good.

knowing that we will be seeing them twice more before the new year made their departure easier, but the goodbye always hurts. i'm usually okay until mom gives me a hug and refuses to let go. then the tears come. watching her car pull out of my driveway and disappear around the corner rips my heart out. at the end of one of her month long stays a few summers ago she got up before the sun and snuck out the door while everyone was sleeping to avoid the goodbye.

to my mom- thank you! please come back soon- the monkeys miss their "crazy gama" and i can't keep this place strait much longer.

miss and love. kiss and hug.

a family kitchen

before

after

it's still missing a few things (baseboards, quarter rounds, a bar stool, & some paint), but for blogging purposes lets call the fully functional kitchen complete. as you may recall our fabulous friends hung the cabinets and the resident stud did pretty much everything else. my pictures don't due it justice.

when we bought the house this space was being used as a combo kitchen/dining room and there were 3 separate living areas. now we have a kitchen, a dining room, a toy room, and a living room with dark laminate wood flooring running throughout.

we added an island. yeah storage!

brian cashed in a favor for the back splash. stinky came up one sunday morning to lay the tile, and drove back monday morning to grout it. thanks stink!

one of the problems we faced when doing the kitchen was that it had never been wired for a garbage disposal. there was no switch. brian mounted and wired a switch under the sink that can be accessed through the tilt shelf- clever clever.

pantry pull-outs- the greatest thing since sliced bread.

trash anyone? the process was exhausting, but so worth it. the kitchen is open, bright, and easy to clean. thanks to everyone who had a hand in it- we love it and you!

not the mama

 

you know brian's been working a lot when he sternly asks his middle child to pick up her books and she responds with "daddy, you're not da mudder!" a phrase typically reserved for her bossy big sister.

he wasn't laughing, but i almost wet my pants.

protecting equal rights one windstorm at a time

the santa ana's are throwing us around again today- they ripped my neighbors 'yes on prop 8' sign out of their yard and sent it tumbling into traffic. ahh, it's the little things that make me so very happy.

moved to tears

mine is a family blog. it's a place for me to document and share the things we've been doing and how cute the kids look while doing it. this post is of a different nature, but please don't run away. no matter what your political views, i think all americans can benefit from listening to gen. colin powell's interview on 'meet the press'.(skip to about 1:30 for the beginning of the interview, listening through 7:30)

his words spoke to everything i have learned about islam from three cups of tea to my religions courses at school. he gave me the chills and then made me cry.

in the orchard

we kicked off our fall festivities with some apple picking at oak glen. the scenery was beautiful! the sun was bright, the air was crisp, the hillsides were green, and the apples were deeelish.

miley insisted on carrying the bag, which we filled with 40 perfectly imperfect organic california apples.

little buddy was crabby most of the afternoon. come to find out he had strep throat. oops.

my girls loved climbing among the low lying tree branches in pursuit of their scrumptious picks.

and brian loved getting his picture taken- can't you tell? is it just me or does this pic make it look like i'm married to mccain?

a wind-blown family

when people find out where we live, they often ask with a chuckle- how's the wind? until this week, we didn't know.

apparently the santa ana winds that set southern california ablaze every fall originate in our back yard. last night we had 80 mph gusts. the winds build momentum moving through the cajon pass and hit us before moving onto their southern destinations. luckily, we haven't had any fires in our immediate area.

g-ma glo and auntie tweece are in town (yeah!) experiencing this wild weather with us, but they haven't complained because they avoided the 12 inches of snow that fell at their house this week.

compiling a christmas list

g-ma glo has requested a family christmas list :). she likes for us to be specific- down to the item # if possible. it doesn't leave much to the imagination when opening gifts, but it's way fun shopping/receiving cute things i want/need. for the girls a new pair of rain boots that they wear rain or shine.

opinions needed-which ones? if the mary janes, which color? both styles run about $25.

a matter of time

 

this picture was taken with my phone in the ER late last monday night. the following morning (brian's b-day) it was sent to the phones of some of our favorite people without any explanation. chelsea was the first to call back, i picked up and heard-"what was he climbing on!"

of course he was climbing. climbing on a planter wall outside a restaurant. i didn't get to him in time. he fell. the fall itself wasn't bad, and this mother of three was telling him to get up and shake it off. he was crying, but not the i'm really hurt cry. no screaming. luckily, i wasn't alone.

kim: he's holding his arm, i think there's something wrong with his arm.
me: no, he's fine- look (moving his wrist and elbow to demonstrate that everything worked)
kim: don't do that.

then i saw it- the unnatural arch in his right forearm. i panicked. cried. scrambled for my phone. kim and scott shuffled car seats and kids. i stood in a fog trying to comfort my baby and keep his arm steady. scott took the girls home and kim loaded levi and i in her hummer and drove us to the hospital.

i made a number of frantic phone calls: first to brian's dad- i knew he would answer, i knew they would be there, they always are when we need them. his voice was calm and knowing he would take care of the girls comforted me. i took a gamble calling brian, hoping that he had forgotten to turn his phone off during class, he hadn't. then i called uncle timmy (brian's boss) at home hoping he could reach someone at the school. no such luck, but tim offered to take care of the girls or come sit with me at the hospital.

levi sat in his car seat whimpering, holding his arm during the 10 minute drive. at the ER they took us right in and the little champ let them examine his arm, take x-rays, and fit a soft cast. both bones in the middle of his right forearm were broken. he insisted on walking out of the hospital by himself when we were done, giving the nurses and doctors left-handed high fives and knuckles the whole way.

to my son, thank you for being such a brave little man. we knew it was only a matter of time, but couldn't you have waited a while?

what blog?

 

looking forward to sharing the craziness that has been our lives just as soon as the kids antibiotics kick in and i climb out from under my homework.

p.s. cute pic of tiff and miley because i miss my family and i don't believe in posting without a picture :)