The past week

We've been a little bit busy this past week, when we're not out enjoying the warm weather:

BB turned 7 on the 6th! I made his favorite meal of grilled burgers and shrimp and we played outside in the pool. Then on Saturday we had a birthday party with his friends (10 boys and 1 sister and 4 lovely mommies!) at the movies where we watched Indiana Jones and then pizza and birthday cake at Pizza Hut. He had a great time, and then when we got home we stayed out late and played until dark (which is about 9:30 now!) and I got to sit around and chat with the neighbors and enjoy the great evening time.

You won't hear me complaining about the heat! I think it was just a week ago that I was tired of the cold, well the next day it jumped to 85 degrees and humid and it's been like that most of the week! I love it! I do need to get my air conditioner fixed in the van though... And BB is so ready for school to be done. It's been a long year for him (he started in August in KS) and they don't get out until June 25th here.

J sent the kids some 'presents' in the form of Big Wheels for the twins, a Wii game for BG and a little Swiss Army Knife for BB(eeek!). LG is really liking the Big Wheel and scoots around on it; LB gets frustrated because he can't reach the pedals and he really wants to pedal something! BG likes the Barbie Island Princess game, lots of problem solving and counting, but not too hard for her. BB's knife is put up until we can do his 'safety training' and rules of use...

I saw the orthopedic doc yesterday for my back. I've been having a lot of pain since LB and LG were born (almost 2 years!). Basically, he told me lots of people have bulging or herniated discs and there's not much they can do for it except what I'm already doing (exercise, lose some weight, and hope it goes away). Anyway, that part doesn't look bad. I'm also scheduled to see a rheumatologist next week for the inflammation in the same area along with recurring inflamation in my eye and an antigen in my blood that often occurs with arthritis. I'm really hoping that can be ruled out also. My pain has diminished quite a bit the last couple of months, especially since starting exercise again, but the stress of having pain and not knowing why has been wearing on me...

And finally, I skipped the gym this morning because as I was cleaning the lint trap in the dryer, LB came into the laundry room and threw something onto the top of the dryer and it went right down the lint trap! Rattle, rattle, rattle... So after clearing a space in the mountain (ok small hill) of clothes, I pulled the dryer out and took it apart. I would like to say the pencil (that LB threw) was all I found in it:



Unfortunately, the top of the dryer is just one of the areas that tends to gather clutter in our house. But, hey, nothing like taking a dryer apart and putting it back together to make you feel self-sufficient and I only had one screw left over...

Chocolate Pasta

We were at TJ Maxx the other day in their little 'gift basket' food section and BG picked up some curly noodles and said 'this looks like chocolate pasta.' Sure enough, it was. So she asked if we could get it and said she would eat all of it (she hasn't been eating any pasta for the last 6 months). I asked her what she wanted on it and the quick reply was 'chocolate syrup!' So we tried it last night, along with our regular pasta salad, with butter and a little bit of Hershey's syrup on it... It really didn't taste much like chocolate, pretty much like regular pasta with a hint of cocoa. Needless to say, BG wasn't impressed, and neither were any of the others. I think we'll stick to our plain pasta...

Fruit Salad

I mentioned to BG the other night that when I wear a fruit scented body lotion, her Daddy says I smell like fruit salad. So tonight she dumped both the Wild Watermelon and Strawberry Kiwi shampoo bottles into her bath... She said "I'm fruit salad" when I asked her how much she used. and she's really clean too...

Great Hymn Book!

Don't tell my dad, but I got him this great hymn book for FD. It has the history of each song along with the hymns. I love sitting at the keyboard and pecking out the songs and reading about how it came to be. Sometimes I'm more interested in the driving force behind the music than the music itself... For "A Mighty Fortress Is Our God" it says

In a forward of a book, Luther once wrote: "Next to the Word of God, the noble art of music is the greatest treasure in the world. It controls our thoughts, minds, hearts, and spirits....A person who....does not regard music as a marvelous creation of God....does not deserve to be called a human being; he should be permitted to hear nothing but the braying of asses and the grunting of hogs."

Amen!

Scanner Working Again!

My scanner is working again. LB can reach the printer buttons and it's just one of those things I don't have the energy to mess with long enough to make a permanent fix... Here's BB'sbpicture of Pop-pop and Mom-mom's back yard. He was really impressed by how big and 'fancy' it was with the wall Pop-pop built and all the flowers and decorations.

Pringles

Pringles are especially known for their packaging, a tubular can with a foil-coated interior, and a resealable plastic lid (with the Pringles famous logo), that was invented by Fredric J. Baur. Mr. Baur was an organic chemist and food storage technician who specialized in research and development and quality control for Cincinnati-based Procter & Gamble Co. Mr. Baur died on May 4, 2008 at Vitas Hospice in Cincinnati. He was 89. Mr. Baur was so proud of his accomplishment that a portion of his ashes has been buried in one of the iconic Pringles cans. Baur's children said they honored his request to bury him in one of the cans by placing part of his cremated remains in a Pringles container in his grave in suburban Springfield Township. Mr. Baur's daughter, Linda Baur of Diamondhead, Mississippi has stated that the rest of his remains were placed in an urn buried along with the can, with some placed in another urn and given to a grandson. Lawrence Baur of Stevensville, Michigan, Fredric Baur's son, said Baur requested the burial arrangement because he was proud of his design of the Pringles container.

I was listening to NPR in the car and they were discussing Mr. Baur's burial and asked listeners to email what they would like to be buried in or with or wearing. So, I thought about it for a while (obviously no kids in the car so I could actually think about something for longer than 3 seconds) and couldn't come up with a single thing that I cared about enough that I would want to be buried with it. And then pondered further and decided I don't really care where I'm buried or if I'm buried or cremated or what happens to my earthly body after my soul departs to meet Jesus. This is why I try not to think very often, it often turns morbid... But, really, I've always thought cemeteries odd places and I know we should respect the dead, but I guess I feel like it's so much more important to love and respect people when they're alive and give them up to God when they are not here anymore. I want my children to remember me in so many other ways than in a hole in the ground or in a Pringles can, which is probably why I haven't visited my mom's grave yet. I would rather think of so many other memories than what she looked like in her grave and her legacy was so much bigger than anything she could have been buried with. I'm sure Mr. Baur was a pretty smart guy and designed a great product package, but to his family he was so much more than a can of Pringles. And Jesus sure doesn't care what our package looks like when we meet Him!

Spring?

Living here may force me to re-evaluate my favorite season. It used to be Spring, but if this cold, rainy, lack of sunshine, flowers not blooming, jacket wearing, heat on, hair pulling out, stay in bed all day weather continues I may have to change it to Summer or Fall or whenever the sunshine shows up around here! We had 2 weeks of gorgeous weather in early April just to tease and green things up a bit and it's been cold ever since. After the great weather in NJ last weekend, I think I was expecting to come home to the same. Sadly disappointed. So we had a pretty blah week and even more blah weekend. BB's school had a little carnival on Friday - indoors. Stayed in the house mostly except for McDonalds on Saturday evening just to get out and we went to Michaels yesterday to get a few craft supplies so we have some more cold weather activities in the house! Usually, BB doesn't care what the weather is like, but maybe it's starting to get to him too as he was content in the house...