Home Despot Elly

We made it home from Tri-Cities today with no (as a gentleman at church put it) “unauthorized stops in Rufus [Oregon].” This is referring of course to the last time I drove home from Tri-Cities all by myself with three small children in the car – when my tire blew just past the John Day [...]

I read recently on the Femina blog of a just-before-Christmas-party-disaster involving powdered sugar and 3 small children. Today we had one of our own.

I was on the phone with my mom this morning, and one of the boys burst in with, “Mom, I pooped in my pants…” (in itself not a positive thing) “and the [...]

*Note: these are movies I saw for the first time in 2009, not that necessarily came out in 2009.

In no particular order:

SlumDog Millionaire – an almost-fairy-tale set in India. The Brother’s Grim kind of fairy tale where eyes are gouged out and innocents are used and abused. Not for children. But uplifting and mind-opening nonetheless.
Up [...]

A few updates on my kids’ vocabularies.

Monica:  “Gink” for Drink, “Ow!” for Ow. “Why?” for why (isn’t she too young to start that one?!! “Gu-Gah” for Judah, “Mommy” for mommy and/or anything that she wants. She says a very sweet, “Pee?” for please, and an even sweeter, “daa-dyou” for thank you.  Whenever she sees a dog, she [...]

Yes, we did make it back alive from Family Camp! (and count ourselves lucky to do so without being involved in any emergency trips to the hospital – it was a bad camp for emergencies!) Since then we’ve been busy doing lovely summery sorts of things. Barbecueing, playing tennis, weeding (a little), going for walks [...]

For my birthday this year (on Wednesday) I am going to go to the Oregon Coast with nearly all of my closest friends and family, live in a beach house, eat 3 square meals a day, plus entirely too many\’c2\~ junk-food snacks, drink lots of coffee and do absolutely NO cooking, cleaning, or dish-washing for [...]

I feel bad that I have nearly every cute thing Judah did when he was little typed out, printed, and in a folder, while poor Monica will barely know anything about her young self. So I thought I’d type up a small update, so that people who don’t see her often will know what she’s [...]

OK, I thought these were really neat, and really easy (relatively speaking). So, sorry Mom, I’m going to try to get double credit by showing them off to all of my (online) friends – who might not see them on your refrigerator!\par
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Photo “Bragnets” as taken from a Crafty Mama book from the library:\par
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Magnets of [...]

I don’t know how long this little girl is fixing to stay in her cosy location!! I feel like everything is in line, in place, all prepared for action and yet… nothing! I went to the doctor’s on Thursday, and things are moving along but no sign of immediate action. While there, I scheduled to [...]

Yep. Still here. Only one week left of Michael’s vacation time. AArrghh!!\par
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On the plus side, I’m still feeling pretty good. I went out this morning to Walmart, Michaels, and Winco and bought gardening supplies, fingerpainting paper, and groceries. When I got home we had lunch, then I took a nap, and when the boys woke [...]

Well… I’m still here. At Home. No Baby. No contractions. Nothing much to do, since this week has been blocked off for, well, having a baby. I’m not technically due until tomorrow, but Judah was 3 days early, and Ezra was 2 days early and I admit, I was hoping for a weekend birth and [...]

It’s nearly 11:00. Michael is out of town until tomorrow night, and as I usually do when he’s gone, I’m wasting time on the internet. Doing what? Why looking up all of the actors in Casino Royale of course and seeing what else they’ve been in. What could be more reasonable?\par
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We went to Walmart today [...]

It’s nearly 11:00. Michael is out of town until tomorrow night, and as I usually do when he’s gone, I’m wasting time on the internet. Doing what? Why looking up all of the actors in Casino Royale of course and seeing what else they’ve been in. What could be more reasonable?\par
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We went to Walmart today [...]

We’re reading in Genesis for devotions lately. Michael discovered that teaching the boys what happened on the days of creation went from a chore to a game once he started showing them to hold their hand up and slice downward for each word – “Day One Light” (3 slices). Hey, whatever works. Ezra can do [...]

Yes, it’s true. Only 3 weeks to go (hopefully). My plan is to expect my baby to be 2-3 days early right now, but when I get within a week of my due-date to magically change my expectation to the baby being one week late. The plan being of course to avoid late-pregnancy impatience and [...]

That’s right, I’m home from visiting my parents in Eastern Washington for a 4-night stay last week. “Tuesday through Saturday” sounds like a long time, but the time went very quickly with lots of things packed into what seemed like a few short days! We met all of our goals: the boys got some good [...]

In the last 3 months my husband has lost over 50 pounds on a regimented diet – the kind for which you buy ridiculously expensive, horribly bland, pre-prepared so-called food. Mostly he’s eaten out of packets mixed with water and either heated or chilled, although he’s been allowed one actual meal a day consisting of [...]

As usual, I post least when I’m most busy. So what’s been going on since the day after I made Pain l’Ancienne)?\par
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Well, there was Easter: We went to my inlaws for a big dinner after church, actually skipping the Agape feast that we normally eat every Sunday after church. A good time was had by [...]