How would you like THIS for dinner?:

Yeah, me neither. But Evie thought it was pretty good. She knows she's not supposed to get in to Snap's food, but she succumbs to the temptation occasionally. This evening while I was working on dinner I turn around to see her chucking the food onto the kitchen floor from the pantry for Snap to get and eat. You know, kinda like fetch. But then someone ELSE picked it up, assuming it was chocolate. That person shall remain nameless, but it wasn't me!

After a good laugh, I went back to work on dinner and when I turned around, Evie was babbling on but had the distinct look that she was sucking on something. You know the look. Yep, it was dog food. I went and changed my facebook status b/c I like to keep it interesting:

why is it that Evie will suck on DOG FOOD no problem?!! but when it comes to lunch or dinner, she'd rather not?

Still, it's not as bad as the time Noah ate dog poo as a toddler. I was at my parents house and only knew what he had done based on the smell emanating from his mouth...

Anyway, a little while later, I was talking to my brother on facebook chat when Evie came up to me and said, "It's cold." (Yeah, she's talking SO MUCH these days). I took her hands and sure enough, they were cold...and wet... She had been playing in the toilet.

This one, right here.

So, she had an interesting night.

LOTR is the coolest

If anyone actually reads this, I apologize in advance for the boringness. I'm a huge dork. But no one will probably ever find out b/c no one reads this!

I love The Lord of the Rings. I had never heard of them until the first movie came out while I was in college, Christmas of 2001. I happened to be in Chicago at my Gramma's house. After we got back from the movie, I borrowed my uncle's copy of The Hobbit and devoured it. When we got home again, I borrowed LOTR from the library and read all three in just about one or two weeks.

I remember finishing Return of the King at school and being really depressed for like a week b/c of what happens to Frodo in the end.

Terry and I started dating about six months later in 2002. In fact, one of the first conversations I had with him on a sled behind a four wheeler was about these books =). For Christmas, he bought me The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings on CD! It was the perfect gift, I tell you what. I have listened to them so many times.

But alas, they are getting scratched up. So for 2009's Christmas Terry got me an MP3 player! He spend countless hours downloading all the CDs into Windows Media Player on our old laptop. Then he got them on the GPX easily enough.

It was a great gift, but the GPX was so hard to use. Terry felt bad and got a different MP3 player - a Sansa. So we went to upload the CDs from WMP to the Sansa and it would not work.

None of the CDs or audio tracks were in order, no matter what we did. Frustrated, we gave up these last two months.

But last week an ipod presented itself. It's used, like a 3rd generation I think. But it works. So Terry set to work downloading the CDs into iTunes. But then when he went to sync (upload) them, they were out of order! ARG! I did not give up though. I found a wonderful website that solved all of our problems. Aldo is a genius.

So I've got everything working. It's taking a while to upload everything, but then again, I do have 56 CDs to get through. And these babies are long. But I listened to what I downloaded on the ipod while I worked out this morning and it worked! YAYYYYYYY!

valentine tradition in the making

Terry came up with the brilliant idea of combining Valentine's Day with a high school fundraiser. He organized a progressive dinner where the students serve couples. The proceeds will help send them to a week long conference this summer called Challenge in Ohio. I helped a little with the logistics, as a sounding board to Terry (he's says I'm invaluable in this role =)), and the games by drawing on a friend's experience with this sort of thing.

We had a sign up for the food required. We even did a video to promote it at church. 17 couples originally signed up. But several kids/people were sick and one couple had a baby! So I think we served 13-14 couples.

It was very confusing how we got everyone through their houses so I'll leave that out. It's enough to say that we had two soup/salad houses, two main course houses (lasagna) and one dessert "house" which was at the church.

Terry and I were at the church for the dessert so that's all I have pictures of, for now.

Doesn't it look awesome?! For the record, I didn't decorate. This is out of my ability!

Here are two boys that took coats and opened up the door.

Here is our combined first group.

Here are the kids pouring drinks. Nice pinky point Ben. =)

Cheese cake was the winner of the night. Here is a cake that didn't really get eaten but was pretty nonetheless. It will find a home at youth group on Wednesday though.

We provided childcare on the other end of the church. Apparently it takes three girls to look after Evie and a baby =)

Here is the first group again, this time with ambiance =)

Here is the second group, and overlapping group one who just finished.

Here are a couple friends, Shawn and Becki.

More service to Dale, Myra, Jeremy and Trish.

Heidi, Bruce, Joyce, Terri and Lane, who looks just like my dad

Having finished serving dessert, the boys help themselves.

I'm totally making this Terry's new profile picture. Look out!

Manga Messiah

You know the song at the end of The Matrix? Handel's Messiah? I know it well b/c I worked in a Carmike when that movie came out (1999 and I was a senior yo!) and I always cleaned the theater while that song was playing. Anyway, I couldn't understand what they were actually singing.

After Terry got this book, "Manga Messiah," for Noah, I would just sing "Man-ga Mess-i-ah" to the tune of Handel's Messiah whenever I'd see the book.

Anyway, Noah is a fan of this book. It's good, and very biblical. It follows the actual events in more detail than any usual kids Bible. The only problem is that Noah wants to read the entire book in one sitting. Not possible. Terry was beginning to slur his words and is resting as I type. =)

fur cut

Snap dog got his hair cut today. It looks great and smells better. I am much more found of a clean dog, though I might still prefer a dirty-ish cat. But really, that's not possible. Cats keep themselves clean all the time. Ooooh, on a side note, there's this cat that hangs around the church that is super friendly. Perhaps I will adopt it and keep it as a secret from Terry and Snap... =)

we all scream for...

Terry brought home some ice cream cones recently. The kids love em! Except they don't seem to want to try to eat the actual cone.

Here you can see that Evie's done a lot of hard work to get all of that ice cream out. I bet her tongue was tired!

Cutie

Noah didn't like the cone either, but they sure love the idea of it.

superbowl

Terry took some pictures of the kids for the church bulletin to advertise the Superbowl party we had last weekend. I thought they were pretty cute.

This is the one that made the cut. I like that Noah's little sister looks as if she has tackled him =)

what we're aiming for

Some people have asked what's up with Terry's hair these days. So I'll show you what we're aiming for.

I think for most of his life, he had the same 'do, like below. Terry parted his hair and gelled it down on the sides. I used to like it. =) He looked a lot like Neo.

Then he cut it short. I remember the first time too. He went to a really cheap place, and it showed. It looks good here, but perhaps he wants a change.

So here is what we're aiming for: Peter Petrelli. Oh yeah!

LOST...("poof" sound effect)

I LOVE LOST. I love it. I'm a huge fan. Well, not big enough to watch extra stuff online or play games or discuss theories in chat rooms, but I thoroughly enjoy this show. I do like it well enough to know some of the actors names and some things about them though. I like it more than Heroes or even The Office. I love this show.

Of course, I was raised on Star Trek and Star Wars so supernatural stuff always kinda gets me (again Heroes). Plus, there are a lot of spiritual themes, even Biblical ones (!), on this show. It's so enjoyable.

So here is one piece of artwork depicting what's going on this season. I have no idea what's happening or why but I draw comfort that this is the final season and they have to start revealing things. But the entire show is built on questions and intrigue. If you like things spelled out, then you don't like LOST. So this photo is intriguing. Buildings in the background?!

I love Locke. And I really enjoy Ben. He's such a great bad guy. So slimy and manipulative. You just can't trust him. And I like Kate.

And now, what's up with this. Last supper much? See what I meant about Biblical themes? And there's Locke at the center. Hmmmm. The thing is they do everything on purpose on this show. Everything means something. I love it.

So here's Kate Austen. Her real name is Evangeline Lilly. Here's some 4 Bears trivia for you. We came up with Evie's name based on this woman's.

I always loved the name Evie. The first place I heard it was on the movie The Mummy. Except her name is Evelyn and they call her Evie. I liked Evelyn but Terry didn't so when I found out that this actress went by Evi (how she spells it) and her name was Evangeline, it was perfect.

And that's how we came up with our little squish's name - Evangeline...Evie.

And I've read that she is a Christian but it's difficult to know anything for sure based on journalists, right?

Anyway, I LOVE LOST and I'm not about to jump ship or complain about where the show is going. I guess I have faith that it's going to be cool how they explain everything and end it. I'm in it til the end baby!

a first for Noah

The last time I was at the dentist (six months ago), Terry brought Noah along to get him used to the idea of starting to go. All the dentist did was count his teeth and say they looked pretty healthy. Pretty low stress.

So today I had my teeth cleaned and Terry brought Noah afterwards to get his done as well. We weren't sure at all how it would go. I distinctly remember worrying about this back home when the hygienist would ask about Noah and mention how even a two year old could come in. I thought, "Not my two year old! Have you seen him get his hair cut?!"

But apparently he's grown up since then (he IS almost 5 - so hard to believe). Noah did SO great! There wasn't a single tear or anxious moment. He giggled and acted really silly and answered questions and showed off his clean (cavity free) teeth

Here Noah is waiting for his x-ray's to come back. I wasn't in the room for those, but it sounded like he did fine.

I can't even remember what Katrina is doing to Noah here (she goes to our church!) but he was handling it well.

This is their computer screen showing us the x-rays. He only had to bite down from the front, not for those awkward back teeth. Look, you can see his permanent teeth under his baby teeth!!! They're ready to come in soon.

I had to come in with Evie b/c she has to be with brother wherever he is. Oh, and daddy is pretty great too.

Here she is polishing Noah's teeth. He picked the grape flavor stuff. He laughed at this point b/c it tickled and the suction didn't phase him at all.

Katrina thought he was doing so well that she did a fluoride treatment just like the big people do! She filled the little trays with mouse looking fluoride stuff and he had to bite down on it for one minute. I hate doing this only b/c I drool all over the place. Yuck. But Noah did great. He was chomping down on the thing and laughing. What a big boy!

Here is the dentist. All he did was count Noah's teeth b/c he's the "best teeth counter." No cavities!!! What a silly boy, he has his mouth wide open for the teeth counter to look in =)

And here is the video from my cell, which is why it's so grainy...