The power

I have the power to make my son laugh uncontrollably. I can make him smile so long his face hurts. I can make him squeal with happiness. I can give him great joy. And then I can make him turn from all smiles to screaming in horror in one second. Maybe two. All it takes is one sentence: "All done with the swings". Oh, the horror. Oh, the carnage. Oh, the tears.

But we still feel lucky to have gotten this rusty, old, jem of a swing set for FREE off Craigslist. Yeah us!

(The neighbors are under the blue spot - I didn't know if they'd appreciate a picture of themselves on the internet so I spotted them out. Man, I have mad Photoshop skills.)

Grand Opening!

Today is the big day! Announcing the Grand Opening of Chic Made! My new Etsy shop is open.



Eventually we'll be switching over to our own website, chicmade.com, but for now I've opened this Etsy shop to sell my, and my talented friends, handmade things. So cruise on over to chicmade.etsy.com and see the new arrivals. There's not a lot of inventory yet, due to camera problems, but check back soon and you'll see even more beautiful, handmade things. Bookmark us! Big things are to come from Chic Made.

And if you are a talented Chic who's interested in selling something on Chic Made, just let me know! We're always looking for a new talented chic to join the ranks.

Also, a big shout-out to the talented Mau Studio's who designed the great Chic Made banner you see above. A very talented (and patient) chic.

When Naomi gets bored OR cross-dressing

We spent the morning hiding, finding, and re-hiding the plastic Easter eggs. It kept the kids busy for a while, but then Naomi started to get bored... you can see the result for yourself.

Cute, yes. But I'm afraid both boys may need therapy later. Especially since their mother insists on posting these kinds of pictures on the world-wide-web.

Easter Weekend

We had friends over to decorate eggs with us on Saturday night, and friends and family over for a yummy dinner on Sunday. And, of course, the children looked great for church (especially thanks to the dress Grandma Ashurst made for Naomi).

Instructional Exercise Ball Video

Or rather - maybe it's a how-NOT-to-Exercise video. Either way, the kids decided to help me out with my push-ups on the ball.

It actually was a pretty good ab exercise since it was not easy keeping my balance with wiggly kids crawling all over me.

Winter vs Spring: NOW ON PAY-PER-VIEW!

The battle is on! Is it Spring or Winter? Do you need a coat, a jacket, or short sleeves? Is it rainy but warm or rainy and cold? Should we have soup for dinner or a cold pasta salad?

This time of year is so exciting. All the buds are popping out on the trees, flowers are blooming, grass is turning green again, Summer is just around the corner. But is it Spring today, or really pretty Wintry? It seems it changes from minute to minute. On the Spring days we go outside and play, and then I come back inside and am all motivated to clean out this room, or organize that closet. I am all excited to start gardening and see if I can improve our already beautiful landscaping. ... And then there's a cold, rainy, windy, wintry day. Like today. And I feel sad and mopey. I haven't done a dish all day - which means the sink is full. I haven't done a load of laundry all day - which means there's stuff in the washer starting to stink. I haven't planned dinner - which means we'll have a frozen pizza or plain pasta for dinner. Blah.

I know I shouldn't let little things like the weather affect me - and it doesn't really. It's just an excuse, I guess. Or lack of a motivator, maybe. What other things do we let derail our days? As a mother, particularly a stay-at-home mother, it's hard to maintain a strong level of self-discipline every day. Some days I do the laundry, the dishes, play with the kids, and organize a closet all in one day - which I conside a great success. Some days I consider it a success that I unloaded the dishwasher. I imagine it's the same for people at work out of the home, too - you aren't super-productive and efficient every day. So what do you do to get yourself out of a rut? What motivators work for you and what downers drag you into non-productivity? Share with me. Maybe it'll motivate me to make something real for dinner today. Or at least tomorrow.

*****UPDATE 3 hours later*****

I thought I'd post these pictures as proof that I did eventually get off my duff and make a nice dinner and do some laundry. Apparently, one of the things that motivates me is blogging about how unmotivated I am.

**notice the great little table in my laundry room - Richard just hung that for me.**

Diapers for lunch

Or at least Isaiah thinks so. See the attached video.

Click on the video to see it.

Wordless Weekend

All weekend long I snapped pictures as often as I remembered to prepare for a post called "Wordless Weekend" where I would post all pictures and not say a word. This morning as I go to create that post I think maybe I'll need a few words. So how about we call it a "Few Words Weekend". No long stories - just basic background info for most of the pictures. It was a fun weekend.

Isaiah at Grandma Worth's birthday party

Isaiah, fostering his love of trucks, much to Asher's chagrin.

Naomi, with the first of many owies now that we are playing outside in the Spring weather

Isaiah fell asleep on the middle of the floor. What kind of terrible mother lets her child do that? Put the poor kid to bed!

Isaiah helping Mom with the laundry

Grant and the birthday girl, Margaret, at her Sunday night dinner/birthday party.

Spring is arriving in our yard.

Naomi playing computer games. She can scroll up and down, point, click, drag, and type.

Asher fostering his love of fashion - just kidding. He's just obsessed with wearing Naomi's shoes.

Naomi modeling her Easter dress made by Grandma Ashurst.

The family bed

I've always assumed that the term "the family bed" came from way back when there was only one bed in a house and everybody slept in it. Or, that could be me totally making stuff up. But I do know that what it means now-a-days is when all the kids climb in with Mom and Dad. For that reason, I've always thought "the family bed" was a bad thing - for me anyway. I'm not a fan of sleeping with my babies usually. Their breathing keeps me up, their twitching keeps me up, not having enough room keeps me up. Occasionally Naomi comes and climbs into bed with me about 20 minutes before it's time to wake up. And occasionally Isaiah wakes up too early and I lay him on my chest in bed and try to sleep a little more.

Today - both of those "occasionally"'s happened at the same time. Naomi climbed into bed with me around 6am and shortly thereafter, Isaiah started fussing a little so he joined us. Pretty soon I was a Mommy Sandwich between Naomi and Isaiah (Richard had vacated the bed already). And I was surprised to find that I was enjoying myself! Nobody was too twitchy or snortey and since Richard wasn't there too, there was plenty of room. I'm not saying I'd like to exchange sleeping with Richard for sleeping with my kids - but "occasionally" it's nice to get such sweet cuddles from such sweet kids. Maybe we should make Saturday morning "the family bed" morning or something. Or maybe we'll just leave "occasionally" as it is.



I haven't posted a good picture of my sweet kids in a while, so here they are this morning piled around Isaiah as he has his morning bottle. Can you feel the love that I have for them? Because I feel like it's beaming all over the place this morning.

What are your feelings on "the family bed"? Do your kids sleep with you ever? Why or why not?

Flowers for all!

Don't forget to sign up for the Springy Swap today if you want some great flowers from a bloggy friend.

Tales from Sunday School

I was teaching the 10 year olds in Sunday School today. I was filling in at the last minute, so we were playing hangman with a twist. The twist was that to guess a letter they had to tell me a word from the scriptures that started with that letter and what that word meant. So, for example, to guess the letter "a" they had to supply me with a word like "atonement" and a semi-definition like "why Jesus died for us". By the end of the class they had gotten smart and had opened their scriptures and starting using the index to find words (I wouldn't accept any repeats).

So here's the scene:

boy: "U!"
me: Ok, but you have to give me a word that starts with "u".
boy: (looking in his scriptures) uncircumc1sed!
me: (hesitantly) OK, but what does it mean?
boy: (reading some passage from scriptures)
me: (accepting his lame answer because I don't want to go there) OK, so basically that means they considered those people unworthy. It was kind of a mean thing to say.
boy: (to kid next to him) Ha, ha! You're uncircumc1sed!
me : Ahhhhmmmm. I don't think that's a word you want to be using on a regular basis.
OK - who else wants to guess a letter?

Maybe I should call his Mom and let her know what went on incase he starts calling his siblings "uncircumc1sed dorks" or something and then says he learned about that in Sunday School from Sister Worth.

*in case you were wondering why I put the "1" into that word - it's so that I don't get hits from search engines when somebody types that word in.*

Commentary by Asher

I've think I've mentioned before that Asher loves the movie Toy Story (and Toy Story 2). This evening as he was watching it he was giving some great commentary. A blow by blow report, really, in his sweet little language. I tried to catch it on camera, and I didn't catch the best of it, but I did catch some good stuff. Maybe he has a future as a film critic. I think he really captures the emotion the characters are feeling.
(By way of explanation, he is sitting at the top of our slide which we brought inside today to get rid of some of the rainy-day blues.)

*anyone viewing this through blogs.theworths.org will need to come to my blog to see the video*

***Don't forget to sign up for our Springy Swap in the previous post if you want to receive a fun new Spring Flower of some sort.***

A Springy swap

I just heard about a fun new aspect of blogs: swaps. So naturally, I want to try one. Here's how it works, I declare what item(s) we're going to swap. If you're interested in swapping you leave a comment with your name and a way to contact you if I don't already have your snail mail address. You make/buy your items. I send you the name and address of the person you are assigned to in the swap. You send your thing to them. You randomly receive something from the person assigned to you. Doesn't that sound like fun? Some of the swaps are pretty pricey but I'll keep mine low and easy to start off with and see how much interest we get.

Let's swap flowers. Springy flowers. Of whatever variety you want. It could be a flower pin, or a silk flower arrangement, or fresh flowers, or a painted flower... you get the idea. Just some springy flowers. Handmade, store bought, or in between (although I think homemade would be most fun). Maximum value of $10 and keep in mind that you also have to pay to ship it.

We can only do this if enough people are interested so let me know if you're in. I'll leave the comments and joining in the swap open until the evening of Monday, March 10. At that point I'll assess if we have enough people and assign you someone to send yours to if we do. You'll have a week to get your swap item together and in the mail. That way you should receive your pretty springy flowers just before Easter. Doesn't it sound like fun to have a new Easter/Spring decoration or something? Come on, admit it, it sounds like fun. Join!

Definitions

We define people by a lot of different things: what they do, what their name is, where they come from, how much money they have, etc. For example, I was probably defined the following ways today by people I came into contact with: wife, mother, Visiting Teaching Supervisor, driver of blue Corolla, patient in Dr.'s office, friend, customer in restaurant, customer in store, daughter-in-law, driver of gold minivan, impatient person on phone. I'm probably missing a few.

I feel like I am most often defined as "mother". I am proud of that. I love to be defined as "mother" or even "good mother", "patient mother", "hip mother". But today I got to take a break from being defined as "mother" and play other roles. I had a Dr. appointment so the kids went to Grandma Worth's. After the Dr. appointment I went to lunch with my girlfriend. For all the people in that restaurant knew, I had no children. Maybe we were on our lunch break from work. Maybe I'm independently wealthy. I was just a little bit mysterious! I wasn't immediately definable by the pack of kids I was carrying around. It felt nice. I love being a "mother" - but sometimes it's good to be incognito.

The Movie Quotes Quiz Answers

I had no idea that would be such a difficult quiz for so many! All of those are movies that I've watched frequently enough to have known right off the top of my head. But clearly not everyone watches the same movies as me.

As for a winner (Worth, Ashurst or Other) I think the prize goes to ... Others. Graffiti and Katz take the glory. Worth's and Ashurst's pretty much tied since one person from each group got 7 or 8 right. Without further ado, here are the quotes again with their movie titles following:

1. "Oh, great! Now I have guilt!" - Toy Story

2. "I create feelings in others that they themselves don't understand." - Cars

3. "I'm pretty sure there's a lot more to life than being really, really, ridiculously good looking. And I plan on finding out what that is. " - Zoolander

4. "And last week I saw Cameron Diaz at Fred Segal, and I talked her out of buying this truly heinous angora sweater. Whoever said orange was the new pink was seriously disturbed." - Legally Blonde

5. "I feel like such a heifer. I had two bowls of Special K, 3 pieces of turkey bacon, a handful of popcorn, 5 peanut butter M&M's and like 3 pieces of licorice. " - Clueless

6. "You know, it's dangerous for you to be here in the frozen food section. Because you could melt all this stuff." - My Blue Heaven

7. "Yeah, but your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn't stop to think if they should." - Jurassic Park

8. "Ya ship's all banged up! " - Independence Day

9. "You know what else everybody likes? Parfaits. Have you ever met a person, you say, "Let's get some parfait," they say, "No, I don't like no parfait"? " - Shrek

10. "Hang the code, and hang the rules. They're more like guidelines anyway." - Pirates of the Carribean: The Curse of the Black Pearl

If this quiz has inspired you to watch any movies - I highly recommend My Blue Heaven and Zoolander as truly funny. Legally Blonde and Clueless are great chic flicks. Jurassic Park, Independence Day and Pirates of the Carribean have some great action. Shrek, Cars and Toys I wouldn't wish on anyone at this point since I've watched all of them WAY too frequently thanks to the kids.

Thanks for playing, guys. It was fun.

quoting movies

My family (as in my siblings, parents and I) watch movies when we get together as a form of bonding. It's either that, or sitting around chatting. We're not like the Worth's who love to play games or plan big events. Since we watch, and love, so many movies, most of us quote movies frequently. I'd say one of the most commonly quoted movies for our family is "My Blue Heaven". If you haven't seen it, you definitely should. It's hysterical. And very quotable.

What made me start thinking about quoting movies is that Asher just quoted a movie to me. He'll be 2 next month and he already quotes movies. He definitely is living up to his name (get it? The whole Asher - Ashurst connection?) We were watching Toy Story and right when Sid straps a rocket onto Buzz and then is about to go outside to blow him up it starts to thunder and rain. At this point, Asher said "Oh, man!" and then 1/2 a second later Sid says "Oh, man!" in the movie. I couldn't believe it! He's either a genius - or he watches too much TV. Is it possibly both?

Anyway - for your entertainment, here is a Movie Quotes Quiz. Let's see who does better - Ashurst's, Worth's, or the few other random visitors who read my blog (whom I love - thanks for reading guys!).

1. "Oh, great! Now I have guilt!"

2. "I create feelings in others that they themselves don't understand."

3. "I'm pretty sure there's a lot more to life than being really, really, ridiculously good looking. And I plan on finding out what that is. "

4. "And last week I saw Cameron Diaz at Fred Segal, and I talked her out of buying this truly heinous angora sweater. Whoever said orange was the new pink was seriously disturbed."

5. "I feel like such a heifer. I had two bowls of Special K, 3 pieces of turkey bacon, a handful of popcorn, 5 peanut butter M&M's and like 3 pieces of licorice. "

6. "You know, it's dangerous for you to be here in the frozen food section. Because you could melt all this stuff."

7. "Yeah, but your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn't stop to think if they should."

8. "Ya ship's all banged up! "

9. "You know what else everybody likes? Parfaits. Have you ever met a person, you say, "Let's get some parfait," they say, "No, I don't like no parfait"? "

10. "Hang the code, and hang the rules. They're more like guidelines anyway."

Good luck! Let me know how many you got in the comments - but don't give any answers away - we don't want cheating!