Friday, February 29, 2008
leap day post
Monday, February 25, 2008
oh happy day
- the days are getting longer
- today was especially sunny. (maybe living all those years in the west effected me more than i realized. i do love seeing the sun - just not humidity that all too often accompanies it here in the east. but sun and snow are quite a cheery combination.)
- my GIRLS ARE BACK
- the wonder, that is my sister-in-law annie, did a photo shoot with my girls while they were in utah.
below is a slide show of aformentioned photo shoot. it's rather long as there were too many good pictures. (i am glad that grace finally has nicely combed hair by the end.)
here are some of the hinckleys that the girls were visiting. (grace didn't take any pix, but luckily my sister-in-law sent some.)
final reasons to smile are these two gem of conversations that have happened with the girls since they've been home. (really it just takes one day to get such good fodder for my blog.)
setting #1: grace and lily have been told to go get in the pajamas. grace decides to change in downstairs bathroom.
grace (emphatically): "i'm changing by myself!"
lily (right behind her and just as empatically): "ME, TOO!" (pause) "can i come in?"
setting #2: we're in the car driving grace to school. vivaldi's "four seasons" is in the CD player.
lily: "this is little einstein's!"
me: "it's actually vivaldi, but you've heard it on little einstein's."
lily: "yeah, but it's little einstein's."
me: "it's vivaldi - actually it's the four seasons, and it was written by vivaldi."
grace: "can we listen to something else?"
lily: "yeah, but it's little einstein's"
i think i might have tried to explain to her one more time that it was written by someone called vivaldi, but i gave up. the good news is that she kept requesting it (especially one section that i believe is suppose to represent winter over and over.) the bad news is that when we listened to spring/opening part, i kept hearing the lyrics: "oh yes, oh yes it's springtime!" i'd prefer no lyrics going through my head, but luckily the part that she loved didn't have any word associations for me. while i don't think little einstein's improves my children's IQ, i do like that it has classical music in it. and i did learn (might be too strong of a word here) wagner from bugs bunny.
Friday, February 22, 2008
missing my girls
well the girls have been in utah visiting family all week. here are some of the girl hinckley cousins at a gathering. they are having a great time with their grandparents, aunts and uncles and especially COUSINS.
the first few days they were gone, i was quite sad. i still miss them, but now i am more used to a quiet house and having only one helper while i make dinner. the boys seem to have benefitted from the extra attention. evan loves to "talk" to his sisters on the phone and has taken to wrestling jake. the girls return on sunday and we are looking forward to seeing them.
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
happy birthday to one young chick
Sunday, February 17, 2008
an ode to my brother jim
three cheers for drew
(why what did he do?)
he sat still for a hair cutting!
the boy in the picture to the left is my nephew, andrew. he is on the autistim spectrum and haircuts have always been very difficult for him due to his heightened senses. he was with me this past friday and in need of a haircut. i thought i would try and give my sister a break and cut his hair for her. he did super!! he started kneeling on the ground and holding me for comfort, but then was able to transfer to a chair. he sat well for me UNTIL we came to cutting around his ears. i waited for him to be ready. he indicated that it was ok for me to cut around his ears, but still would defensively push my hands away if i tried to trim his hair. yes, i know i should've waited until he was asleep that night, but being the obssesive person that i am, i finally just held his hands down and trimmed around his ears. i had to hold him for the next 10 minutes as he cried and kept repeating: "tell me why?" i had to smile a little at that. we had a fun visit with him and especially evan was glad for the company as the girls are in utah and jake was at school.
p.s. andrew was watching himself cry in the mirror the whole time as well (i finally had to go into another room and read to him). gracie also loves to watch herself cry in the mirror; it drives pat crazy.
p.p.s. in case you don't know what i'm referring to at the top, here's the original A.A. Milne poem:
Wednesday, February 13, 2008
remembering kirsten
Friday, February 8, 2008
ketchup, catsup or catch up
here's the group of us that went to "wicked." i'm still trying to figure out how i can justify going again; it was that amazing.
frustrating!
ok, here's a frustration of mine. i decided a year ago to grow my hair out for locks of love. i've always thought my hair grows slow and now i definitely know it grows slow. (i also recently confirmed through a simple test that i do indeed have high arches and then read that this is the least common foot type. is that why i've always been so picky on shoes and why so few shoes feel comfortable to me?) i digress. after feeling like it was growing so slow, i decided not to cut my hair for six months. as a result, a couple of weeks ago, some of my hair literally burnt off while i was curling it with a curling iron! i had my friend cut off a couple of inches the other day to get it healthy again and then looked up a picture from last year at this time. here's the picture from today (with my other new pair of reading glasses) and below is a picture of last year. after a full year of conscious effort to grow my hair out, i've gotten nowhere! i don't know to whether persevere with my goal or to just give up and say that i'm too old and my hair is too thin to do it. what would you do? (p.s. it was totally unintentional that i happened to be wearing the same sweatshirt/fleece thingy; although i do love this particular fleece hoodie).
fun kid pix
above is fritz in one of my new reading glasses. he loves to try them on and he readily and happily posed for that picture. below is fritz pretending he's a monster. he'll put that on his head and walk around with his hands out grunting. he is kind of known for grunting lots; my sister-in-law coined the term "tim allen" grunts which explain the noises he makes well. he's still not speaking much (just ma, da, cheese, seems to say "los" for skylos which is the doggie's name), but seems to communicate his needs just fine. i'll have him tested when he's two (in may) if he hasn't started to catch up by then, but for now i'm not that concerned. he remains on the tall side for his age (usually 95th%) and loves to play with legos, cars or his thomas the train track. he's very playful and loves to snuggle although has to be in his crib to fall asleep and goes to bed without any complaint. he's a great kid.
lily and evan crashed when we got home from church the other day. (i was in the dining room feeding jake and they were eating lunch while watching a movie.)
.
if you notice the cup (below on fritz's tray) says "little stinker." i got a complete plate set with that logo when we were at the smithsonian air and space museum in august. my two youngest kids answer to "stinker" because i call them that so much (especially lily). anyhoo, i was thrilled to find that plate set and it was even on clearance!
my apologies in advance
- yesterday i was stopped at a light and lily asked me why i stopped the car in the middle of the road. i told her that i stopped at the stoplight and explained (actually sung a little song that explained) how green light means "go" and red light means "stop." lily rebuttled (quite emphatically) that green light meant "stop" and red light to mean "go". i just held my tongue as she wasn't going to be happy with whatever i said and i figure she has a couple of years to learn the correct meaning.
- this morning, she wanted a second glass of milk, but hadn't yet eaten breakfast. i told her that she could have milk after breakfast and that i was making her french toast. she didn't want french toast she exclaimed and went storming off crying to her room when it became clear i wasn't going to give her more milk just yet. later she came back and saw the french toast cooking. "what's that?", she said, "i want some." she happily ate the french toast.
this is the child that i am sending off to utah next week along with her sister. my parents are transporting the girls out to spend some time with my in-laws (my parents annually go on a ski trip to utah). anyhoo, my apologies in advance to mike and jean, annie, jeanie and any other in-law who reads this blog and will be in utah at the same time as lily. at least she has a great smile and lots of charm to help you forget her "ornery-ness."
Wednesday, February 6, 2008
mystery party
mystery solved! afterwards they danced in the living room to hannah montana and other songs (i made everyone dance to gloria gaynor's "i will survive" - got to give these girls some culture, right?). it was a fun night!
word for the year revisited
happy birthday, colin!
when i was writing about my blog's birthday, i realized that today is my nephew colin's birthday. isn't he cute? he's just a couple months older than fritz and holds special place in our hearts as he stayed with us for a few weeks when he was a baby. i hope for him and fritz to be great friends throughout their lives. colin is one of the happiest kids i've ever met and always on the go.
happy 2nd birthday, colin!
happy birthday!
family and friends
- a slow simmer
- caboodle and kits
- connecticut culps
- dash of nutmeg
- downeast lythgoes
- goodnes gracious
- jim and amy's trailer
- jimenez five
- keeping up with the lutzes
- ken & chelsea
- laugh at me
- line upon line
- macnair extravaganza
- monkey business
- not so new york
- not so simple sirmans
- serving of servinos
- six in peach tree city
- soccermom sagas
- stuckihouse
- the bowes bunch
- the daley news
- the olson family
- the shirley family
- thinking it through
- tice, etc...
quotables
"drama class is actually a lot of fun." -gracie (this is only humorous in that grace seemed surprised by how much she likes drama class. this from my child who we refer to as "a drama queen" when she is not around.)
"mom, you can go with my teacher and i'll stay home with japie and evan. daddy can go to work, and i'll be the mommy" -lily, in response to learning that she would be going to preschool next year instead of this year.
"mom, if you don't get rid of that smell soon, you're going to have to buy a new car." -gracie when it took me a couple of days to clean out my car after returning from a road trip.
"mommy, they have dress-ups for you!" -lily while walking by the prom dress section at macy's.
"i said the prayer "last"-erday." -lily's replacement word for "yesterday."