hinckley house

boston children's museum

2010-04-07T15:24:00.005-04:00

we had a great easter weekend. the weather was beautiful. we had a great time as a family and then later visiting extended family.

last thursday, we spent the night at a hotel near boston, mass. good friday was spent at the children's museum in boston. i don't think that even a hundredth of a second was wasted on boredom that day.

want to feel old? here's my soon to be six year old playing with the cash register the only way she knows how.

yes, that's right folks, she is scanning the food! it doesn't ever cross her mind that those buttons are there for a reason and could be pushed.

the girls wanted to spend an eternity at the hair salon place. i finally kicked them out when another girl returned for the second time to have a turn with the mannequins.

fritzy enjoyed washing hair (which he also kept pretending to do at the pool that morning).

the kids made it to the top and back twice in this three-story climb/rope thingy.

we got home late friday night, then headed to new york state for an easter egg hunt with the cousins at my parents' house. again, the weather was beautiful. (sadly, no pics).

sunday morning, in honor of general conference (a special semi-annual meeting for our church), we made waffles with strawberries and whip cream.

i was so tired out by sunday afternoon that all i made for dinner was potatoes cooked in a frying pan with onions and sandwich meat ham. i then made more waffles for the kids. my brother informed me it was a most pathetic easter meal (i agree), but we were fed and the whole weekend was fun. did i mention how beautiful the weather was?

actually, still is... sunshine warms my soul.

happy belated easter, everyone!

a little drama to go along with your play

2010-04-07T11:57:00.006-04:00

(**warning** this post contains many videos - i recommend "fritzy as tomatoes" and "fritzy as BBW part 2" if you're short on time.)

you want great drama? well, at least as great as drama goes when it doesn't involve me or my girls.

let me set the stage: we got up early to go swimming at the hotel before checking out, ate breakfast, saw the ducks, then got to the boston children's museum around noon.

shortly after we had arrived at the museum, we went to a show. it was an interactive play where kids were chosen from the audience to participate.

lily was called up first to be a glass of water. (we hadn't yet wised up to the option of hitting video on our camera though).

then fritzy was called up to be a tomatoes.

then we spent six hours at the museum. we still decided to bring tired (remember swam in the morning), but well-behaved kids to the 6:15 showing of the three little pigs.

when we got to the theater, they seated us and then announced a 15 minute delay on the start of the play.

from the minute we sat down, fritzy raised his hand to volunteer for a part in the play. he kept his hand raised for pretty much the whole 20 minutes that we waited for the play to start.

finally, two gentlemen come out to start the play. they need four children to volunteer for the various parts of the play. this time there is a full audience and the chance of any my kids being chosen is slim. but fritzy (and the girls) hand is determinedly raised.

the first pig is chosen ....not fritzy.

the second pig is chosen ...not fritzy.

the third pig is chosen ....not fritzy.

the big, bad wolf is chosen ...not fritzy.

all the parts are filled.

but wait,

...the child chosen to be the big, bad wolf has changed their mind

...and fritzy is chosen to be the big, bad wolf!!!!

(two very happy parents in the audience give a huge sigh of relief.)

fritzy part 1

fritzy part 2

fritzy part 3

a prayer

2010-03-30T15:24:00.001-04:00

dear lord:

please give me the strength to make it through gigi's opera singing phase.

amen.

daddy daughter dance

2010-03-28T17:02:00.003-04:00

checklist for a daddy-daughter dance

1. have mom curl your hair

2. make sure your dress can twirl

3. get a special surprise of a new dress from grandma hinckley just days before the dance. be sure to show off how beautiful your dress is.

4. have your big sister put some make-up on your face.

5. don't forget to accessorize with purse and most importantly, dad!

grandma muz

2010-03-28T16:57:00.000-04:00

my grandma muz passed away on march 4, 2010. here she is at christmas with all the girl great-grandchildren. (when i printed out a copy of this picture before her funeral, fritzy said: "i wanted to be in that picture." i am sad that we won't have another chance for him to have his picture with "GGMa".

anyhoo, grandma muz got ill shortly after christmas. she just kept going in and out of the hospital and the infection kept coming back. it is weird to think that she was ok at christmas and is now gone. i am very grateful that she had her wits about her until the end. she was 85.

we lived 45 minutes away from her when i was growing up. i have many memories playing at the farm where they lived and having her make us dinners. she was a very thoughtful and generous person. i am grateful for her influence in my life.

je regrets

2010-03-28T16:36:00.004-04:00

my apologies for my lack of blogging and reading blogs. (turns out i don't like to visit my own blog when i haven't updated my own in forever). after repeatedly telling myself that i should take my blog down if i wasn't going to update it, i have decided maybe i should just. update. the. d*#$. blog. so here i am. i have indeed missed all of you. my thanks to those who responded on my most pathetic previous posts. (kayla, thanks for the kick in the pants; sorry it has taken me so long to actually respond with more.) hopefully, i will give you much better stuff to comment on in the near future.

i have decided to start using nicknames for my children. if i could go back and get my last name out of my URL, i would. since i don't feel like going through the hassle of a new blog, i thought i would at least try and be discrete with their names and bury the old posts with their names on it through a mass pile of new posts. i also continually debate making the blog private, but for now i'll just hope my famine of posts have killed off any psycho strangers that may be reading. (psychos that i personally know and love are always welcome to read!)

looking back

2009-12-21T23:15:00.002-05:00

if i could go back for an hour, i would....

hinckley kids... circa 2005 & '06

one of my all-time favorites of grace

a little something

2009-11-08T17:26:00.002-05:00

hoping to re-enter blogland soon. (susan, i've a read a few of your posts - will comment as soon as i catch up on more of your musings.)

for now, this picture at sarahjane explains how i feel lately. when did time start to go by so fast? i've started to continually beg my kids to "stop growing" for which they just laugh in my face or flat out ignore me. it was also pointed out to me about a month ago (by a dear, but honest friend) that i am now old enough to be the mother of a missionary. where has the time gone? while i can't say that i want to go back and relive much (except maybe when i wrote evan's name on his birth certificate), i feel a growing desire to slow down and savor moments more. now i just need to put that in action and stop let's say arguing with my 10 year old over the timing of a song which just might have happened yesterday when we were practicing for our an upcoming talent show!

the color of the week

2009-10-18T17:42:00.002-04:00

ok, boys and girls, here at the hinckleyhouse the color of this past week wasss..........

orange

as evidenced when i dyed lily's socks orange for her halloween costume....

or when i dyed this girl's hair orange for her halloween costume....

...and for when i completed my second half-marathon on oct. 10, 2009. ING sponsors the hartford marathon and their signature color is orange. among other things, we all got orange sunglasses which pat and i are sporting in this post-race pic. i have to say if you are feeling depressed, put on some orange sunglasses. they really brighten your view. it's fun seeing the world through orange.

p.s. just for the record, jake's wheelchair is also orange.

race day

2009-10-18T17:37:00.002-04:00

here are some race day pics that do NOT include me.

pat and the kids arrived early in the morning with me so that they could get parking (and wouldn't have to park in the next town over like last year).

fritzy ready to cheer

i guess the kids got to say "hi" to a fridge at the park. lily didn't want to meet the fridge.

at bushnell park again ...my dad graciously came down to help pat with the kids.

my dad, the kids and pat cheered me on from 3 different places on the race course. it's a great feeling having people cheer you on - even complete strangers.

the kids ready to cheer at the starting line which somehow ended up as the last pic for this post. (as always, no finish line pics of me.)

birthday present

2009-09-27T21:18:00.002-04:00

pat's birthday was this past saturday. for his birthday, my good friend, analia, and i negotiated and then bought him his dream car - a mini-cooper S. i got to sing "big guy in a little car" (think chris farley in "tommy boy") to him and feel like i've assured his happiness for at least the next 10 years or so. here are some pics from when we picked the car up. my parents and my niece were with us (hence the extra child in the pics). later, my parents watched all the kids so we could take a drive and go out to eat.

diddle, diddle

2009-07-08T17:43:00.003-04:00

diddle, diddle, dumpling, my son, jake

was dressed for school after he did wake

with one shoe off and one shoe on,

he was sent to school like dumpling john

and while this rhyme is a tad bit lame,

it's there to show that mom's to blame,

and sometimes she just does not think,

and dad must give her a knowing wink...

(...after he comes home for lunch and sees jake's shoe on the floor. have i mentioned that a week ago sunday, we had to drive 2 hours round trip to retrieve my purse at a restaurant in rhode island? fun times at the hinckley household!!!)

lessons learned

2009-06-30T13:58:00.007-04:00

we returned home from our vacation to wisconsin on father's day a week ago sunday. since then i've downloaded 300+ pictures on my computer, met up with my sister-in-law & her family in new york city and went to an air show at a military base in rhode island where we saw the blue angels, canadian snowbirds and the F-22 raptor perform.

i still need to go through my pics of our vacation, but am all set to blog about our day in new york. my wonderful sister and her two kids agreed to take the train with me to NYC so i could meet up with pat's sister's family. it was an adventureous day, but a good one nonetheless. i used to have a poster that said: "all i ever need to know i learned in new york." while i can't say i learned many life lessons on our little adventure, i did gain many other tidbits of wisdom such as:

new york city is much more wheelchair friendly than paris. however, the man at the information booth at grand central station is not aware of this. new york locals are much more aware of which subway stations have elevators. this doesn't help when you have already gotten off the subway and are trying to exit.

if in a pinch, i can take jake's wheelchair (with jake in it) up an escalator.

it might, just might, be easier to drive into NYC and find parking for a vehicle that needs 9 ft. clearance than navigate the subways.

you can fit a wheelchair, folded up double stroller, two adults, and five additional children in a very, tiny elevator.

don't get off the elevator unless you are sure that you are on the correct floor (especially when you have all the aforementioned things in tow.)

do follow that prompting to grab those rain poncho things that they gave you in niagara falls even though the weather forecast said no rain. (this was learned the hard way.)

don't take your kids to a playground with a water park when you are expecting your amazingly talented sister-in-law to take pictures of them. (it really wasn't that big of a deal).

most new yorkers are willing to show their big hearts when they see someone needs help. (i.e. making room for a wheelchair in the subway, giving up their seats for the kids in the subway, helping you find the elevator to exit when you look lost, offering to help you find a subway station w/an elevator, just opening the door themselves and setting off an alarm when they see you waiting for someone to come open the gate so you can exit, suggesting an inexpensive chinese restaurant to eat at when you are trying to get out of the rain, etc....) we'll just ignore the two ladies who immediately pressed the close doors button after entering a (rather large) elevator; they didn't look like they were from new york.

unfortunately i forgot my camera in the car at the train station, but my sister-in-law was all set to take pics. i had her do some of grace since i didn't have her do school pics this year. despite some craziness, we had a great time with annie and brian and especially enjoyed seeing their kids. (although i have no pics of jane.)

i put this pic in just so you could see what annie had to deal with. fritzy worked hard to keep a frown on his face (even when i pretended to be shot in the bum) and lily was picking a scab in most of the others!

i like this one a lot!!! it truly is amazing that annie got such a great shot in the very brief period of no rain.

evan likes to do lots of martial art like poses.

i mentioned there was a water park, right?

annie's boy with my sister's girl

family day & the wonders of facebook

2009-05-30T22:44:00.014-04:00

before we headed off to family day for pat's work today, i remorsed on facebook about how i would be missing our friends who usually join us for family day, but currently live in japan. anyhoo, scott (the dad) read that statement a mere 6 minutes later and called to say he was in town on business. he was able to come with us. we had a blast even though we missed his family dearly. -APRIL, COLLEEN, BRIDGET & ASHLYNN - wish you could have been there too!!

here's a pic of scott with jake. scott was one of jake's first teachers at church when we moved to ct seven years ago.

lily was first on the bungee jump swing. here she is ready to take off.

the rest of us waiting for our turn. (note the scowl on gracie's face. she thinks it the greatest injustice that i tend to make the older child wait and the younger ones go first).

lily in mid-air.

fritz, all geared up.

fritz in the air. if you look up from him and a little over to the left, you can see grace doing a flip.

i have absolutely no idea how much cotton candy my kids consumed this year. it's all they asked for; their wish was often granted. other times, a certain 5 year old would just sneak to the cotton candy booth while we thought she was playing in the playground.

ready for the rock wall.

lily did really well on the wall and actually climbed up a good distance for her age.

first swim of the season.

so, exactly how much cotton candy was consumed? ...enough to totally hide gracie's face, multiple times...

...enough to make a beard...

...and enough to make your kids go like this the minute you get in the car.

truth be told, there are lots of actions shots of me today; i played volleyball, did the bungee swing, climbed the rock wall and flipped off the diving board. another little or rather large truth would be that i've gained 40 lbs since i went to family day last may. it's still kind of schock when i see current pictures of myself with all the extra padding. so when we got home and downloaded pics, the plethora of pics of overweight me in so many mid-air shots had me in stitches from laughter - just imagine a beached whale trying to do a back flip in the water. (now i know fat jokes are not appropriate and i steer away from them - but it's ok, when you're talking about yourself, right?) while i got a good laugh out of those pics, i'm not humble enought to post them. this one pic of me almost reaching the top of the rock wall was actually decent (or rather hid my weight) enough to post.

oh, and come next spring, if i haven't lost the weight, will someone please remind me to try and restrain myself on the diving board? thanks.

science fair

2009-05-28T10:46:00.002-04:00

grace and her partner, darien, won the science fair for their grade at school and placed 2nd in the whole district. her project was testing the different forces that affect flight. after reading their results, pat was a little worried how reliable the testing was, but the girls came up with a good question and evaluated their experiments well. they also did the project on their own. pat got them started, but the rest was all them.

the girls with their teacher when they presented their project to the district for judging.

lily "patiently" waiting to hear what gracie's award will be.

getting their trophies - 2nd place - beat out by the tooth enamel experiment.

the girls with their trophies, awards and younger siblings.

grace also won her first math bowl and is now off to compete against another school next week. pat and i do find it interesting that she is a top math and science student at a performing arts school. that might help, but the girl is genuinely smart and has always had a burning curiousity and love of learning that i hope remains with her throughout her life.

memorial day weekend

2009-05-28T09:16:00.012-04:00

we had a great memorial day weekend filled with outdoor walks, exploration, quiet time, puzzles, mud, canoeing, s'mores & visits with family & friends. could you ask for anything more?

we took the scenic route on the drive up where we crossed three covered bridges, lily "saw china" and i saw a sign with the words: "3 kids for sale" on it (drove by too fast to actually read the descriptions of the kids). a third generation "harry belafonte fan" was solidified as that was all gracie listened to on the drive up and back; (i believe harry belafonte was pretty much required listening when pat was growing up.)

we spent the weekend at my good friend from high school (darlene)'s house near montpelier, vermont. darlene and her husband were gone the first couple of days, but caught up with us on monday. sunday was spent visiting with our niece, chelsea, and her husband. chelsea just graduated from vermont law school. saturday was spent on the stowe recreational path (after both pat and i took turns having late morning naps). the pictures pretty much tell the rest -

who knew a little foot bridge could be so much fun? i think we spent a good 20 minutes here while we walking the recreational path in stowe.

jake with a swollen bug bite at the top of his nose. we weren't in vermont for more than a few hours before he had a bite. the bugs have always loved him, poor guy. (when mosquitoes get in our car, i go after them with a passion that verges on maniacal because i worry they will just bite jake).

we also found a museum (??fine art store) off the path. it had a sculpture garden and fun stuff inside like this couch made of nickles.

one of dar's cats, harry, totally clinged to us when she was gone. we were fully prepared to be completely ignored when dar returned on monday.

chelsea and jake came over to eat dinner and roast marshmallows on sunday. they are cute couple and we've enjoyed getting to jake better through these visits. he's a good guy which chelsea more than deserves.

we were able to complete 3 of the 4 american girl mystery puzzles. i was a little disappointed that the clues to solve the mystery were just written on the puzzle in glow-in-the-dark paint. i would have preferred a more challenging and subtle approach, but the puzzles were enjoyable to do nonetheless. during the first puzzle, grace did abandon me for other things (in fairness to her it was after a good amount of helping). it just reminded me of all the times, i had abandoned my dad on puzzles while growing up and came back after he had made progress to help finish things off. sorry, dad! but no worries, i'm getting my just desserts now.

on monday, we went to the beachfront near dar and gerry's house. they have a canoe and we had fun going out on it. lily was scared to be on the canoe at first, but soon changed her mind and enjoyed it.

the men with the kiddos.

fact of life #241: kids always gravitate to mud, n'est pa?

dar and i holding our own in the canoe. we had done canoe trips together when we were teenagers (CUE "Memories" music - not "Memory from "Cats" - but the other one - doesn't barbara streisand sing it?).

jake fell asleep on the blanket and got a sunburn on the part of his arm that we left exposed.

grace and i went out together after this pic was taken. we did well until some high winds kicked in and struggled getting back to shore. but we made it once the wind died down - only to find out that dar was the only one who had faith in us returning. THANKS for the vote of confidence, DAR!!!!

THANK YOU!!

2009-05-22T16:08:00.003-04:00

my brother, jim, and his wife, amy, sent the whole lot of us birthday cards - (well, the whole lot of us who had birthdays). he gave each of the kids a dollar bill for how old they were (cute) and drew pics on the envelope. for my birthday card, he called me a dork and misspelled birthday, but it's ok - i still love him!

THANKS FOR MAKING OUR DAY, JIM & AMY!!!!

daily laugh

2009-05-12T15:05:00.004-04:00

my brother and sister-in-law sent this to me this morning. the text at the end of this commercial translates as: "your teeth also want to be white." enjoy!!!

still don't get it? maybe this next one will help.

for tice

2009-05-11T19:16:00.002-04:00

i just had the following conversation with your son:

tycen (handing me a wrapper): "here's garbage."

me: "thank you, buddy!"

tycen: "my name is tycen."

hope that made you smile since i certainly did.

for stacey

2009-05-10T09:26:00.011-04:00

...and megan, you would like this too, and probably any of my "wicked" (as in the musical, folks) loving friends - Chess in concert is coming to PBS in june!!!

i've been watching horrible copies of this on youtube for months. sooooo glad it's finally ready to be released. i have to admit josh groban is not my favorite voice, but i think kerry ellis' voice is as beautiful as idina menzel. i will definitley be watching.

FOUND!!

2009-05-03T18:58:00.002-04:00

...in the nursery, under the table, crammed well by the arms of one little boy and found by the loving care of a special nursery teacher. hallelujah!!!

easter in cali

2009-04-30T14:10:00.004-04:00

what are you looking at in the pic below? that would be 5,000 easter eggs scattered around the lawn. (yes, that is the correct amount of zeros.) my aunt and uncle took fritzy and i to the most amazing easter egg hunt while we were in california.

everyone was split into teams and given a huge garbage bag. the eggs had colored coins in them, not candy; some eggs were special prize eggs. here's everone gathered getting the low down. the woman in pink is one of the planners who does these hunts annually. they're goal for next year: 6,000 eggs!

everyone lined up ready to go. it was a very fun sight.

on your mark, get set, GO!!!

a special area was designated for fritzy so he didn't get trampled. i think the next oldest kid was 7 years old.

cleaning up the yard.

he sure enjoyed himself!

all the eggs your team collected were thrown in one big bag and weighed as teams. the team with the biggest weight, won. (previous years, they had everyone open and sort coins worth various points according to color.) everyone who came to the party was asked to bring a gift basket. the winning team got first choice, and so on until everyone had a basket. i believe fritzy's team came in third. he was very happy with the basket my aunt and uncle got him.

good witch again

2009-04-29T08:02:00.008-04:00

after smoldering temperatures and feeling like i was the wicked witch of the west (read "i'm melting!") for the past few days, the temperatures have finally cooled down here and there is even a freeze advisory in effect for tonight!! hallelujah!

in other news, this past sunday was one of those "horrible, terrible, no good, very bad days." my hubby was out of town so i brought all the kids to church on my own.

to recap, it was the first day of the heat wave and i hate heat waves especially when they are disrupting my spring, i had to change jake's pants and diaper and clean up a huge puddle right as i told everyone head to the car, my soon to be three year old colored with a black crayon on the pew and wall while i was listening to a talk during sacrament meeting, 20 bazillion wipes couldn't take the crayon off and realized i would have to go home after church and get goo-gone, i had to separate an actual group wrestle among my younger three kids during sacrament meeting, my five year old didn't show london and france but definitely showed a bunch of people in manchester her underpants during said wrestle, i let my 2 year old go to nursery with his special blanket because i was just relieved he was actually going to go without a fight and i had to teach mother's day songs in primary, i was crabby while teaching those songs, ran home after church to get goo gone and other cleaning supplies, cleaned off the walls and pew in the chapel while trying to discourage my two year old from using microphone on the stand, gathered all the kids in the car and realized we do not know where aforementioned special blanket is, search the church twice looking for said blanket, finally leave church somewhat surprised how calm two year old is, actually start to leave church parking lot without blanket and two year old starts screaming, i think how wise i am that i have gotten him attached to two blankets and that he will be fine when i get him home to his other blanket, two year old wants nothing to do with other blanket and screams for the next hour while i call every mom of a baby at church and ask if they accidentally took home his blankie, was very crabby with husband on the phone when he calls that evening, forgot to watch my favorite show and i never forget to watch my show, finally give in and turn on the air conditioners on april 26th!!!

the good news is that i was in bed reading by 9 pm that night, felt quite justified in turning on air conditioners considering what a bad day it had been, watched my show on monday (thank you cbs for finally putting amazing race episodes online), fritzy has been using his other blankie without complaint ever since his hour long "grieving" period, the kids and i were all seated while the prelude music for sacrament meeting was still playing and i was actually complemented by a dad at church at how quietly my children wrestled (that's a good thing, right?)!

the bad news is that fritzy's blanket is still MIA (sorry tice, it wasn't outside). hopefully, it will be in the lost and found when we return to church.

for tice and natalie..

2009-04-29T07:51:00.003-04:00

or any other mom of a 8-10 year old daughter or son who has had the pleasure of seeing high school musical, i got a good laugh out of this clip.

twilight necklaces

2009-04-09T09:49:00.003-04:00

for my twilight loving friends (hello, nat - i'm talking to you), go check out my friend stacey's blog. she's selling some mighty cute (and inexpensive) necklaces right now.

here comes the sun

2009-04-09T09:37:00.003-04:00

i'm in sunny california with fritzy to visit family. although it's not sunny, it's raining! not quite sure how i managed to hit california when it was raining, but i certainly haven't packed right for it. hopefully, it warms up soon. (when i asked my aunt last week, she said it was sunny and in the 70s.) anyhoo, i return next tuesday. have a happy easter everyone!

MI-5

2009-04-06T16:15:00.004-04:00

pat and i watched the season finale for season 3 of MI-5 last night. MI-5 (or spooks at the brits call it) loves explosive season finales, but this was the biggest ride so far. boy, it took me a while to settle down after watching it.

might i say one of the best things about MI-5 is that it first starred mr. darcy from the keira knightley pride and prejudice, then when he left the show, they replaced him with frederick from materpiece theatre's persuasion. really, does life get better than that?

post edit: ok, and when i went to look up the website for MI-5, it appears that now mr. thornton from north and south is also a regular. i sooo want to meet the casting director for this series!

p.s. you can watch "north and south" and "MI-5" instantly on netflix.

february break

2009-04-03T09:13:00.005-04:00

in all my catching up on five months worth of blogging, i forget to mention my girls trip in february. my parents took the girls with them on their annual skiing trip to utah. they stayed with pat's mom and were able to build great memories with the hinckley side of the family (and mine too).

my parents took the girls skiing for a few days. this was gracie's third year, and lily's first. lily was fearless (as usual) and ate it all up (as shown by pic on the collage below - i just love that smile.)

from what i hear, grace is doing quite well on skies; although, she is a more cautious child than lily - or should i say more reasonable child?

waiting to get on the lift with papa.

skiing down the mountain with nanna.

all geared up; ready to go.

my brother and his wife came down from idaho and the girls had a wonderful time goofing off with them. this might be a good time to mention that gracie's nickname "gigi" comes from abbreviating the phrase "gracie goofball."

one of the biggest highlights of the whole trip was to go babysit cousin mallory twice a week. seriously, the girls loved doing this and was always one of the top two things out of their mouths when asked what their favorite part of the trip was. looking at the picture below explains it. mallory has the sweetest disposition to match that face.

other highlights include decorating pottery with aunt carolyn, then being joined by cousin kait for a movie. of course, playing with nanna jean's (hinckley) amazing collection of dress-ups.

the girls took an overnight flight home. so we just went and got them at my parents' house the next morning. i was so giddy to see them that i felt like a kid on christmas morning. we even ended up waking them up because we couldn't wait any longer.

i always send the girls with money that i never see again. i don't think they ever need to use it with so many grandparents around to spoil them, but they do always come home with a sweet little token for us.

fritzy enjoyed the attention of being home with just mom and jake more than i thought he would. he was glad to see his sisters though when they returned.

april fool's

2009-04-03T08:37:00.003-04:00

we had a fun april fool's day. i made this mock sushi to celebrate, but opted for no pranks. (much to my dad's dismay, i'm sure. my father attended a college known for its grand scale pranks, and was seriously proud when i almost inadvertently incurred a $200 fine for one of my college pranks at byu. his parents actually paid $200 worth of damages for one of his pranks while he was in college, but that's a story for another day.)

the sushi was actually rice krispies treats with gummy worms in side and a fruit roll-up wrapped around it.

something only the kids would enjoy. (i ate just the rice krispy part.)

when grace came home from school, she declared how happy she was that i hadn't said what i always say on april fool's day yet. i went totally blank on what she could be talking about and after pestering her for a while she finally told me. yes, she was so right. i almost always walk around on april fool's day saying "it is my day to fool everyone else. no one can try to fool me." it's a good thing that i didn't say that this year as amanda totally fooled me. i'm actually embarassingly gullible as was evident when i tried to make this thai soup recipe last night. i couldn't find the thai seasoning that the recipe called for. after doing some research, i found that fish sauce was a common ingredient in thai food; so i bought it and tried to make my own variety of the soup. i was extremely gullible to think that i would tolerate fish sauce in a meal when i dislike fish. i used half the amount the recipe called for and still felt like i needed to drink a whole bottle of pepto bismal 2 hours later. luckily, i hadn't put the chicken and veggies in yet, so i just dumped the soup down the drain and started over with a tried and true mexican recipe i like. so anyone (who lives near me) want some fish sauce?

oh, and to conclude, i thought i would put a pic of my april's fool. (zucchini courtesy of my sister's garden).

a must see

2009-03-31T15:48:00.007-04:00

let me preface what i am about to write by stating that i never cry in movies. (it usually takes "shirley maclaine in terms of endearment type of acting" to get me to shed tears unless of course, i'm pregnant- but i digress.) this past weekend, pat and i thoroughly enjoyed lars and the real girl. i had wanted to see this movie when it came out, but abstained because i was worried of the nature of the jokes based on the premise; it's about a shut-in man who orders a "special" doll over the internet. i decided to put the movie on my netflix queue after i read a great review from a blog i love to read. first off, this movie is totally clean!!! except for the real nature of the doll, it is a PG movie. (the real nature is hardly referenced and certainly not how the doll is treated in the movie.) but that is not why i loved this movie. it is ultimately a movie about the goodness of people. you get the feeling that lars lives in a frozen tundra, but yet you want to move to this place immediately because of the sense of community and goodness in the people's hearts. it is all done so beautifully - the movie truly is surreal at times. after first laughing hysterically when he introduces his "friend" to his brother and sister-in-law, i found myself with silent tears running down my face through the remainder of the movie. you can find mr. ebert's review here. let me know if you've seen it or watch it and what you think!!!

beginning of mr. ebert's review: How do you make a film about a life-sized love doll, ordered through the Internet, into a life-affirming statement of hope? In "Lars and the Real Girl," you do it with faith in human nature, and with a performance by Ryan Gosling that says things that cannot be said. And you surround him with actors who express the instinctive kindness we show to those we love.

post edit: and to state the obvious in case you don't know me, i'm not pregnant; those tears were genuine.

spring break

2009-03-29T17:49:00.003-04:00

grace has been off of school this past week. we've had a relaxing week of not getting up too early (still had to get jake to school, but his bus is later), watching movies together, reading, playgroup, playing outside when it was warm enough and a special lunch date with dad on friday. on thursday night, i took lily and her to the ballet. the russian national ballet performed "cinderella" at nearby UConn. it has been a long time since i saw a professional ballet (usually see local productions). i had forgotten how a ballet company has such fluidity and at times the whole motion on stage flows with the music. it had also been a while since i've seen a ballet that seem to have male dancers to spare - and everyone of those male dancers could have been greek statues their muscles were that pronounced (except for the one played the stepmother -that is- we never saw his legs!)

here is a picture from the website. i have to say the prince holding cinderella's hand in this is NOT the prince she falls in love with.

spring hike

2009-03-29T17:23:00.006-04:00

yesterday was so beautiful, we went on a little family hike. shoes were muddied before pat and i could get the jogging strollers together. the kids also spotted this snake by the creek and called us to look. we came across a much more aggressive snake later on a walk that gave us some good arches before slithering away.

who knew my kids were such posers? we had quite the photo shoot on the way up.

reaching the summit (if you can call it that; i do live in the northeast, people!)

i experimented with the light while i took pics of grace. gracie would have definitely been one of those pioneer children "who sang as they walked and walked and walked" - which is what she did. (i would've been too for that matter, as would my mother. i have fun memories of singing "the band played on" with my mother while we walked places when i was a kid.)

Quote of the hike:

lily after just slipping on a log: "mommy, you know why i fell?"

grace: "lily, you fell because there was not enough friction."

ok, then.

february road trip

2009-03-28T19:47:00.002-04:00

at the end of february, we went down to maryland to visit with my aunt, and see pat's sister-in-law's art booth at the american crafts fair. we had a fabulous time with our family. the fair was huge and it was amazing to go around and see all the booths. i especially enjoyed seeing my sister-in-law's (susan) work up close. the kids loved the kinetic marble art pieces and we would spend a good 20 minutes per visit at that booth. the girls also found another artist that gave the lifetime pass to touch her handmade beaded vases after giving them instructions on how. the girls could spend 20 minutes or so there as well.

here's all the hinckleys at susan's booth.

the girls with the artiste.

gracie with pat's brother, russ. russ and pat sound alike on the phone. i think i almost thought russ was pat once.

hanging out in the lobby.

feeding the birds (and ducks) at the baltimore pier.

the kids and i with my aunt pam at the pier.

january getaway

2009-03-28T19:45:00.000-04:00

at the end of january, i went up with a bunch of my friends to an overnight baby shower at a bed and breakfast in new hampshire. the mom-to-be's mother owns the bed and breakfast. i had an amazingly good time hanging out with my friends and eating the most delicioius food. there was even a small ice skating rink in the back and a basketful of skates that some of my friends and i took advantage of. (thanks to analia for the pics.)

here's my friend, jennah (who has since had her baby girl on presiden'ts day in february), her sister (and also my friend), jillair and their mother.

the whole gang.

for the record, the dog wasn't fed the whole time i was gone.

turning into a boy

2009-03-28T19:16:00.000-04:00

over the past six months, fritzy has shown inclinations to pure testosterone driven toys. he'll take kitchen knives out of the drawer and pretend to have a sword fight. he loves cars, trains and could not get enough of the power ranger movie that pat let him get out of the libraray. (we've actually banned power rangers movies as it was a little scary how addictive he became to it.) over christmas, my amazingly talented brother went to the basement and 15 minutes later came up with a handsomely carved wooden knife that he made with the bandsaw downstairs. we call it his "HI-ya" as that is what he repeatedly says when he's holding it.

anyhoo, my brother was so excited about fritzy newly exhibited love for guns and knives that he bought him this set of realistic looking toy guns when he got back home and mailed it to him. needless to say the guns were a hit. i'm seeing the potential of re-doing my charlie angels picture with the one of grace at the bottom left.

this toy from christmas was also a hit. pat got the kids a build your own marble thingamajig. he also got me a pair of cushioned swords that the kids have enjoyed, but we have yet to go against each other.

christmas 2008

2009-03-28T18:37:00.002-04:00

i took surprisingly few pictures of the holidays this year. we had a great time. christmas eve was spent acting out the nativity with some friends of ours here in ct. it was a great scene with the 1 year old shepherd not wanting to share her baby doll (the christ child) and me volunteering to be the donkey. (hey, what can i say? i'm good at making an arse of myself!)

christmas morning was in our home, then we spent the afternoon with my parents, siblings and their families. this christmas will probably always be remembered as the one where fritzy got all excited to see his dad's new red ryder BB gun, but then immediately shed tears when he realized that he couldn't play with it. (those were the only tears of the day).

the day after christmas, we gathered with the aunts and uncles and cousins. i have a close knit extended family for which i will always be grateful. i had a blast with my cousins and brothers and their spouses as we played many rounds of catchphrase. all the women had a blast watching and singing along to "mamma mia."

the girl grandchildren got matching dresses for their american girl dolls.

any macnair christmas gathering is not complete with some happy male opening a new knife. i missed pat opening his knife, but here's a shot of my cousin, grant, opening one.

the cousins minus three (we missed you caitlin, ricky & julia!) gathered for a photo shoot. as most of my pics didn't turn out, i'll post a couple of the crazy ones. we know how to have fun.

decorating the tree

2009-03-28T18:20:00.001-04:00

the title explains it all (especially since i don't remember may details at this point). we did an advent calendar (pictured on the mantel) that we bought at the mark twain house last year. i was surprised how excited the kids were to open the boxes each day as they were all little pics of items or people that were associated with the mark twain house. but the kids were always thrilled to open a new window.

i tried to get a picture of how grumpy grace was that she didn't get to put the star on the tree, but i missed my chance.

nativity

2009-03-28T09:15:00.000-04:00

time for me to play catsup time! in the beginning of december, my kids were put of a nativity at our church. lily was a cow and grace was in the angel choir and was the angel who appeared to the shepherds. she memorized her line and delivered it well.

finally

2009-03-21T14:54:00.000-04:00

jake's is on the medicaid waiver!!!! just need to receive his card in the mail now. hallelujah!!

seinfeld*

2009-03-16T10:44:00.004-04:00

we're in the process of trying to get jake on the medicaid waiver for our state. i started this in january and i'm still plugging away at it. after our first application was lost, a week of daily calls to a particular social worker weren't returned, i re-did the application which she then filed wrong and denied. thankfully, the worker at the waiver office is wonderful and sent something to help our application along again. the receptionists at the local office have been helpful too, but this one worker still doesn't contact me or let me know what information she still needs. after another week of unreturned phone calls, i had to go to the office for the umpteenth time this morning to pick forms. before he left for work this morning, pat told me to: "remain calm" and evan exclaimed: "no, i don't want to go here" when i pulled into the department of social services parking lot. i stayed pretty calm as i asked the receptionist for the forms i needed, but did show some frustration when i explained that i had received no notifications that i needed these forms or answers to any of my phonecalls for that matter!!! so now, it's fill out the forms and then wait on line again tomorrow to drop these forms off. i'm sure this worker's caseload is overwhelming and i do know that she was out sick for a few days at one point, but even still - SERENITY NOW!!!!!!*

*for the record, i'm not a seinfeld fan. most episodes annoy me and i never watch the re-runs. that said, there was some classic stuff, i.e. when kramer gives george's in-laws a ride in the horse buggy, that were hysterical.

slacker

2009-02-20T22:23:00.002-05:00

yeah, i know i've been totally neglecting my blog. i hate to even look at it lately. anyhoo, a fellow blogger wrote on a topic i sort of suggested (she had requested topics). i love reading her blog and this post has great laughs if you are mormon, know a mormon or are aware of some mormon culture. enjoy! oh, and the comments are worth a skim - some great laughs there too.

today

2009-01-28T23:45:00.004-05:00

today, i:

ONE - had the following conversation with myself:

me (noticing that i could still scrape out a little butter from the spreadable butter container i was about to throw out): "i bet that would taste good with those pretzels."
me (again): "but you're trying to lose weight."
me: "but it would taste so good."

(the butter won out this time, but i have made it to the gym the past two nights - so we're doing ok with the calories out, just need to work on reducing calories in.)

TWO - i got teary-eyed with pride while talking with grace at lunch. (yeah, i'm lucky to be her mom.)

THREE - started a project that corresponds with my word for the year. (post about that coming soon).

FOUR - made snickerdoodles with my kids and a couple of their friends. (again, need to work on calories in.) p.s. snickerdoodles ended up being a great activity for the little ones as i would just hand them little balls of dough for them to roll in the cinammon and sugar.

FIVE - got hit in the nose with a wet snowball by a four year old with amazingly good aim. (she had just nailed me in the back with the previous snowball she threw. those were actually the only two snowballs thrown as i was shoveling the driveway and made a rule of no throwing snowballs at someone whose working - plus with that record i didn't feel like being her target.)

SIX - took pics of my new "do." my friend, angela, cut my hair last friday, and, i must say i'm thrilled with it.

before

my meager offering (for locks of love)

all in all, not a bad day.

for the record

2009-01-21T19:06:00.006-05:00

while i think it does say something about the growth of our country since the 1950s that americans were willing to vote an african-american as president, i would just like to state that i voted for obama because i thought he was the best man for the job. skin color didn't even make the list of considering factors. and i think that's how the great and fearless dr. king would have wanted it. (since so many spoke of him in heaven yesterday).

as for the inauguration, you can't go wrong with iztak perlman, yo-yo ma and "simple gifts." i liked the poem. the benediction was a little long, but definitely energizing (and silly) at the end. my favorite part was the end of president obama's speech.

"So let us mark this day with remembrance, of who we are and how far we have traveled. In the year of America's birth, in the coldest of months, a small band of patriots huddled by dying campfires on the shores of an icy river. The capital was abandoned. The enemy was advancing. The snow was stained with blood. At a moment when the outcome of our revolution was most in doubt, the father of our nation ordered these words be read to the people:
'Let it be told to the future world ... that in the depth of winter, when nothing but hope and virtue could survive...that the city and the country, alarmed at one common danger, came forth to meet (it).'
America, in the face of our common dangers, in this winter of our hardship, let us remember these timeless words. With hope and virtue, let us brave once more the icy currents, and endure what storms may come. Let it be said by our children's children that when we were tested we refused to let this journey end, that we did not turn back nor did we falter; and with eyes fixed on the horizon and God's grace upon us, we carried forth that great gift of freedom and delivered it safely to future generations."

God. Bless. America.

just one more brag

2009-01-21T18:53:00.003-05:00

i played a little too much at christmas and have since been tackling projects one at a time. i'm getting close to being done and should be back to blogging soon. for now, i will add a "hinckley brag" that i forgot about it. i noticed the day after the last post that i never mentioned my amazingly talented sister-in-law, annie, who takes the most amazing pictures of my kids. when pat and i went to hear her husband sing in december, she watched our kids. we came back to happy kids and this amazing picture of fritz.

hope you haven't forgotten about this equally amazing photo shoot of my girls.

since all the other hinckleys got more than a month of being the main post on my blog, i'll let annie stay here a few days while i finish my projects. be back soon. (and i'll try and catch up and read all your posts soon. oh, and susan, i'm about halfway through twin peaks.)

hinckley brag

2008-12-12T09:10:00.006-05:00

last weekend, we went up to boston to hear my brother-in-law sing in Handel's Messiah. there is much to brag about on the hinckley side of the family right now, and since the only reason i am associated with any of these people is through marriage, i will now shamelessly and unapologetically brag.

we saw the performance on friday night. my brother-in-law was the solo tenor. i'm no music critic, but his voice seems richer and fuller everytime i hear him sing (and it was pretty dang awesome to begin with). this was the 155th consecutive performance of The Messiah by this society. the conductor was insanely energetic and a pure pleasure to watch. at times, it looked like he was bull-fighting with sections of the orchestra. there was a section of period instruments that played a "half-step" lower and gave a feel for how the piece would have sounded when it was written. somehow now our CD of handel's messiah doesn't seem quite up to snuff.

the next day, we were joined by my brilliant (i've already mentioned that she's at a top notch law school in vermont, right?) niece, chelsea, and her husband jake. all the women in my niece's family have more talent in their little finger than i do in my whole being. (don't believe me? just check out my sister-in-law's art or writing. susan also amazingly gave birth to frida about 80 years after the fact?)

the whole gang went to lunch at p.f. chang's. i only mention this because somehow the seating on our side of the table went: jake, pat, lily, evan, grace, me. after lunch, pat made some comment about how it's not fun to take our whole lot out to lunch. it was only then that i realized how i had sat next to the 9 year old for the whole time. it's easy to enjoy your lunch when hubby gets all the young'ns and disabled one and you get the more than capable 9 year old.

here's the hinckleys we were able to visit with (minus brian).

getting back to hinckley bragging, my nephew who lives in seattle made it on an all-regional football team and already has an offer to play football for air force. he was recently in the seattle times with other all-regional player. (he's christian rennie).

the biggest brag of all is getting to visit with this beauty pictured belowed. annie and brian's youngest, jane, is now 6 months old and is very sweet natured. it was fun to see her again.

oh, and if you look close at the above pic, you'll understand why i keep calling grace: "granny". she has lost the baby teeth on either side of her four middle top and bottom teeth.

ok, fine, i'll put one brag in from my side. here's my little nephew, ian, that i get to see in a couple weeks. he and jane are just four days apart.

lily-isms

2008-12-04T20:49:00.003-05:00

lily keeps requesting to read one of my childhood favorites at bedtime. it's entitled "the king who rained" and goes something like: "daddy says there was a king who rained for 40 years" then shows the little girl looking at a king in the sky with rain coming out of his belly. anyhoo, i could tell lily wasn't "getting" any of the book, so when it came to the page that said: "mommy says that little children always have bear feet" and has a picture of the little girl with hairy feet and claws, i tried to explain to lily how she had bare feet because she wasn't wearing any socks, but that the girl in the book thinks "bare feet" mean "bear feet". we kept reading. then a few minutes later, lily practically in tears, proclaims: "i don't want bear feet!!"

then tonight, we read the book again; (she requests it every night). when we got to that page, lily said: "can someone get me some socks? i don't want to have bear feet!" i asked her if she thought her feet would get all hairy and she answered in the affirmative. i tried again to assure her that she will never have "bear feet."

oh, childhood. i must admit that it's one of my favorite things to exploit my kids naivety and try to get them to believe things that aren't really possible. but i am hoping i haven't scarred her too much with this book.

debonaire

2008-12-03T16:17:00.004-05:00

here's mr. handsome in the pea coat that his nanna, aunt annie and uncle brian gave him for his birthday. (click to enlarge).

thanksgiving weekend

2008-12-03T15:45:00.007-05:00

we had a nice thanksgiving weekend. i made dinner this year for all three of my parents and my sister's family. everything turned out well except the turkey that i planned on taking four hours (max.) to cook took 5 1/2 hours. lucky there had been plenty of appetizers and everyone was patient. there is something very satisfying to me in cooking a big meal for everyone (must be my italian lineage). i did decide to wear my 2 1/2 inch leather boots (hey, they matched my outfit) and proclaimed how excited i was to take them off after the pie was served. to which grace responded: "mom, you didn't have to wear them, you know." i also did what i thought was impossible by not being able to finish my third piece of pecan pie (don't worry i did it in three settings - one day, but three different settings). but i can't think of a better way to spend thanksgiving than overstuffing myself with homemade pecan pie. yum.

"When you die, if you get a choice between going to regular heaven or pie heaven, choose pie heaven. It might be a trick, but if not…mmmmm, boy!” -Jack Handey

friday morning was spent shopping the sales; (luckily my brother in the pacific time zone, i.e. 3 hours earlier, decided to shop too and was therefore actually awake when i called him 8 am eastern time.) then on saturday night, my stepmom and i took my sister to see "twilight" for her birthday. (wendy, i would tease you about your age right now if it wasn't practically owning up to my own age on my blog).

anyhoo, i painted my nails red in honor of seeing the movie. must say, i enjoyed it. yes, some lines fell a little flat, and sometimes angry vampire translated into "looks like he's constipated" vampire. but as in the books, the romance won me over in the end.

there were no "twilight" posters, so we chose to stand by this "bloody valentine 3-D" poster.
this picture illustrates why i've never thought of myself as photogenic. the woman in my family always take great pics and then there's me.

how???

2008-12-03T00:17:00.005-05:00

really, how???!!! i'm rooting for ken and tina!

a little sad

2008-12-02T11:02:00.004-05:00

just heard that elder joseph b. wirthlin passed away. he was a leader of my church who gave some talks that have been a source of great comfort to me in recent years. it's a little ironic in that i recently had the thought that i should go back and read some of his older talks since i keep enjoying his new talks so much. i guess that will have to pacify me since there will not be any more greatness coming from this good man in this life. (he was 91 and his wife had preceeded him in death by four years.)

you can find some of his talks here and especially here.

another milestone

2008-11-25T22:20:00.003-05:00

jake also hit a milestone this month when he turned 12 years old!!!

what to say about jake? he melts my heart everytime he smiles, giggles or seems to understand something. this year, i discovered he likes "The Beatles" and that it helps if we sing snippets of songs to make him aware of what's happening next. he willingly gives rides to his younger siblings by letting them sit on his lap. he loves outings as much as his siblings do (which is a lot).

on his birthday, we went and celebrated with my family in new york.

we had a celebration later with my mom (grandma ellie). jake unfortunately couldn't eat his piece of cake until the next day because he was sick.

my mom gave jake these therapy balls. nanna jean, aunt annie and uncle brian sent jake a great black pea coat with a zipper in the back. i'll have to post a picture of him in it. he looks so handsome. my friend, shirlene, helped me turn a throw blanket into a poncho with a hood for him. (not a super hard task, but as my sewing maching had a cobweb on it when i brought it up from the basement, you can imagine how grateful i was to have shirlene helping me.)

happy 60th, dad!

2008-11-25T21:59:00.004-05:00

my dad turned 60 at the beginning of this month. i thought i should acknowledge this milestone on my blog. my dad would walk to the ends of the earth to help any of his children or grandchildren. i am blessed to have him for a dad.

i've always loved this pic of my dad and gracie. my dad is a magnet to all the grandkids. he runs around and plays with them; they all just flock to him when were together. lily recently had a dream where a shark was after her, but she told me that "poppa monster saved her" from the shark. i think poppa will always be a safe place/person to land on for all my kids (as my grandparents were for me).

i always thought that my sister and i inherited our ability to make complete fools of ourselves from my mom. but it looks like we had no choice in the matter as both sides of the family seem to have this gene.

fritzy does look a little scared, eh?

so a very, happy, belated birthday to dad and all his aliases: poppa jim/ poppa monster/ padre! we still love you despite your attempts to spoil my kids rotten and drop the word "parent" from "grandparent"!

car show

2008-11-25T21:40:00.002-05:00

we took the kids to the car show in hartford this past saturday. who knew how much fun getting in cars (especially trunks), dancing in trucks, looking out sunroofs (sometimes hanging) and sitting on motorcycles could be. everyone had a great time.

this was a "how many hinckleys can you fit in a trunk" picture. yes, i do realize it is not a flattering picture of me; but as i mentioned in previous post, i learned from my dad that it was ok to make a fool of yourself. so it's really all my dad's fault.

this video game at the volkswagon station was a big hit with the kids. note that my hands on were on my lap. i was just needed to push the gas pedal; there was to be no help with the steering especially for a little two year old boy.

pat and i think we might be a dying breed of those who prefer manual or stick-shift cars. we were loving the toyota Rav4 until we found out it only comes with an automatic transmission.

reasons to smile

2008-11-20T10:12:00.013-05:00

i thought after my last post, it would be good to list some of the things that have made me smile recently.

* REASON #1: conversation and antics at the dinner table last night:

grace: "can i have another roll?"

me: "not until you eat more soup. it's actually the soup that is good for you."

grace: "maybe that's why i want more bread."

later on:

lily (after she's taken a spoonful of her juice and puts it in her mouth): "mmmm, drum punch!"

she actually should be saying "rum punch." bonus points if you can name the (kids') movie that she is quoting from.

*REASON #2: reading this: "anyone who lives within their means suffers from a lack of imagination." - oscar wilde. glad to know this; so now when my husband tries to pay all the bills, i can just remind how lucky he is to have such an imaginative wife.

*REASON #3: this recent conversation that i had with a dear person in my life who also happens to suffer from a delusional disorder. we were in the car listening to ABBA. (yes, i probably just embarassed my husband by admitting to listening to ABBA. i also danced and sang along to the songs in the credits at the movie theatre when i saw "mamma mia", but enough confessions for one post.)

my "friend": "so sad, i can't believe it's all gone."

me: "what?"

"friend": "sweden. it's gone now. just got overcome with floods and water."

me: "i've never heard that."

"friend": "yeah, it's gone. no more ABBA."

please tell me you find that funny too! (at least just a little bit. i learned years ago that you have to laugh at some of these delusions.) this story might also help you understand why i was in tears (from laughter) when i watched this. (thanks for the link, lindsey).

*REASON #4: I HAVE THE BEST FRIENDS EVAH!!!! friends who forgive you when you flood three floors of their house (this is an oldie, but too classic not to mention), friends who make you the most divine birthday cake and calls just to check up on you, friends who remember your birthday with handmade green earrings, friends who tell you that the dent you just added to the rear of her car gives it character, and friends who write thoughtful notes and bring you the yummiest chicken soup when you're family is sick (even though her husband is out of town). see, i told you they were the best!

birthday cake (yes, my birthday was in may. i'm a little late mentioning this.)
soup and rolls

bonus smile: after seeing skylos (our dog) was eating some cereal that spilled on the floor: "is cereal poison for skylos?"

my morning

2008-11-18T06:58:00.004-05:00

warning: this post contains graphic content.

4:00 am wake up to fritz vomiting. clean up sheets and go back to bed. (amazingly, fritz wasn't a mess. tried to brush his teeth without success as he was already trying to go back to sleep.)

4:30 am hear jake over the monitor. come downstairs and start to tell him how it is too early to wake up (he's been struggling with the time change still) only to see when i come in his room that he is in the middle of vomiting. clean up jake.

4:45 am bathe jake. get him re-dressed. put him in his wheelchair and start giving him pedialyte through his feeding tube pump.

5:00 am lily gets up and has had an accident in her bed. change lily and put mary poppins on for her.

5:15 am take a shower.

5:30 am clean mattress. put bedding with vomit in the washing machine (on sanitary cycle).

5:45 am make gracie's lunch for school and finish dishes from last night.

6:00 am fritz wakes up.

6:15 am fritz starts with diarrhea.

6:30 am bathe a screaming fritz and wake up grace for school.

6:45 am get everyone breakfast

6:55 am watch grace go off to school. call jake's bus company to say he won't be going to school today.

7:00 am write this post while fritz and lily are both in my lap and arguing over who gets to play with jake's new ball that he got for his birthday.

sounds like a promising day, eh? actually on days like this, i always think: "some days are like that, even in australia." if you don't know what that means, then you must read this; (it's one of my faves).

for the record, this is my second morning in a row with a 4 am wake-up call. at least yesterday's wake-up call didn't include any vomit.

post script - 7:10 am jake throws up again. change his shirt and wipe down wheelchair and floor. start wondering if i have enough clean towels to make it through the day.

lowell, mass

2008-11-12T15:47:00.007-05:00

after the exhibit, we explored lowell, mass. i think my favorite trips are when we have one thing on the agenda (this time visit the art exhibit), but the rest of the day is just spent exploring - no agendas, no rushing from place to place, no expectations, etc.... just unawaited discoveries and time together.

the visitors' center had a hands on exhibit for the kids. gracie really enjoyed pretending to weave.

gears on the wall of visitors' center.

all the kids on the trolley at the visitors' center.

after the visitors' center, we ate lunch at a mexican restaurant (there was a HUGE selection of restaurants) and had YUMMY ice cream at another place. then we walked around town where we found this train.

crossing the train track bridge. we saw a HUGE fish in the creek/river.

the kids really enjoyed this trolley playset.

isn't he handsome?

me, goofing off, trying to figure out how my friends take good self-potraits. also trying to experiment on how i can look the least fat in a pic. (i also have to add that i can actually see how my sister and i look alike in this picture. usually i can't see any resemblance other than our mannerisms).
pat joining in the fun.

then we added the boys.

finally the girls clue in and join us.

this (below) ensures a return trip to lowell. we discovered the new england quilt museum. we saved going in for when my mother-in-law is in town. i think bringing her here will be a must.

what the kids did

2008-11-12T15:45:00.000-05:00

here are the kids hanging out at the U of MASS at lowell campus while we took turns looking at the exhibit.

blake's exhibit

2008-11-12T14:32:00.008-05:00

the past saturday, we ventured up to lowell, mass. to see our good friend's exhibit. the curator (?) at the exhibit was very nice and patient as our whole family looked at his paintings (or rather after a cursory look, the kids ran around outside while pat and i took turns looking more closely). anyhoo, here's a quote from blake that i think describes his art as well as life:

“Each painting contains many possible associations, making the point that meaning is always in play, constantly rearranged by our own thoughts and associations. The paintings, as in life, contain moments of clarity, if only fleeting, while resounding of uncertainty.”

his paintings all had simple titles, often not more than three words (i.e. one was named "punch"). at first, i thought my camera did a pretty good job capturing the paintings. but looking at it now, i realize how poor these pics are. they do nothing to capture the texture, color and detail. oh well, at least it gives you a feel for his art.

without further adieu, here are the paintings (posted with permission):

i believe this is one of his "wall follower" paintings. i didn't get a pic of the other one that had a clear part of cubicles in it.

you gotta love the tartan print in this painting. i seem to remember every painting having a small (much smaller than that tartan print) detail of bold color.

this was called "wednesday".

he had a funky stop motion movie too. the best part was when this "man like" thing walking around with an "animated" photograph for a face rips out of the background until just an outline of face remains (hope that made sense). i also liked when he pinned a fly on a string to the wall, but not sure why i liked that part.

i also learned that blake is very prolific - only one painting was completed when U of MASS decided to display his work - all other paintings were new. his work has changed a lot in recent years (according to the curator); his early work was very "representational." unfortunately, i missed one large painting that was on the back of a wall. i found out about it at lunch when lily told me it was her favorite; she also liked the painting "with blocks."

blake & jennah: feel free to correct me on any mistakes. thanks.

pasta 101

2008-11-04T22:03:00.004-05:00

pat likes to occasionally make our family guess what the pasta name means in italian (i.e. tortellini means "bellybutton.") the other night at dinner, he was asking grace what she thought "linguine" means. the answer: "little tongues." i told him next time to please wait until i'm finished eating if the name is something like that. ugh.

bonus quote:
grace: "you know how your food can go down the wrong pipe. well, air can go down the wrong way too!"

Note from Pat: Tortelli does not mean "belly button." What this story lost in translation (from me to April) is that the shape of the tortellini was inspired by a belly button.

for your viewing pleasure

2008-11-04T21:48:00.005-05:00

got a great laugh out of this when i saw it on scrappycook's blog. enjoy.

p.s. yes, i did vote today. and at the perfect time i might add. no lines @ 2 pm.

trick or treat

2008-11-01T15:11:00.007-04:00

introducing....

mary poppins

mary poppins (who lost her parasol at the second halloween party we attended the tuesday before halloween and before mom ever got a picture) in the carousel dream-like sequence

...and the train engineers.

i liked this decoration at one of the houses we trick or treated.

things you would have heard if you went trick or treating with us:

"say thank you" to which fritz would say "your welcome" at almost every door.
"how does fishnet stockings and high heels constitute as a costume?" this was answered when i overheard the girl tell someone at one door that she was "britney spears."
me having way too much fun with the train whistle that accompanied the boys' costumes.
lily asking after only a block if we could go home because she had enough candy. (this made me happy until she's begged twice today to go trick or treating again.)
the girls saying things like: "candy, get your candy here" to all the passerby trick-or-treaters and fritz echoing their every phrase.

other thing i learned this week was that you can't be cheap and add food coloring to chocolate squares. i learned this when i made these (only the pumpkins w/green stems) for gracie's class. luckily, kids like to eat candy no matter how nicely spread the chocolate is and orange sugar sprinkles do a pretty good job of covering the bumps. oh, and i also learned it's very hard to find a white sunhat when it's not easter time. we finally ended up spray painted one of my mom's straw hats white for gracie's costume.

caught up with summer

2008-11-01T13:46:00.001-04:00

i've spent most of the day catching up on all my posts that i promised from the summer. i did this mainly for our own family record, so feel free to skip all that reading if you prefer. i do highly recommend reading the st. louis post though.

#7 st. louis

2008-11-01T13:44:00.010-04:00

our big stop on the way home from utah was to visit the city museum in st. louis, missouri. i have wanted to visit ever since i saw my friend's (jolynne) pictures from her visit (i think jennifer gardner recommended it to her). this place was insanely fun. they give you no map when you go in and tell you to just go around and explore. it has three stories with cages and slides that go back and forth from story to story. (one slide will take you down three slides.) we had a blast despite the fact we were all sweating like pigs from the mugginess and heat of the day.

here are two pics from the outside of building and you can see where you can climb through things. you can climb up to that fuselage and they were working on a cage/steps that would take you to a school bus hanging off the roof.

my girls loved climbing over this "pond" of water.

close-ups of the cages both inside and out of the museum that will take you to floor from floor.

this slide that had a practically 90 degree slant to it was the biggest hit for my girls. lily especially loved it and needed a lot clearance at the end to slow down.

optional way up the slide.

love this pic with grace at the top and lily flying down at the bottom.

there was another room filled with skateboard-like ramps that you could slide down. who knew that concrete could be so slippery and smooth? you can see me helping push fritz up one of the steep ramps; he insisted on going up the hard way. in the blurry pic, you can see me pushing jake up and down a ramp. he enjoyed this greatly (although it was a little taxing on me and i think i got him stuck on a set of steep hill-like ramps).

another section of the museum was a carnival theme with old pinball machines and arcades. here we are cooling off with a soda by the world's largest pair of underwear.

here are the kids asleep all together in the same bed at the hotel. it was the night before we went to the museum. it took two trips to the pool that night to tire them out after spending two days in the car. the museum also helped expand energy and we ended up driving through the night and being home by the next afternoon.

day with the dinosaurs

2008-11-01T13:30:00.001-04:00

the day before we left, we went to the dinosaur museum at thanksgiving point with my nephew, colin, and my mother-in-law. it was a great hands-on museum and the kids had a great time.

irrigation and yard

2008-11-01T13:21:00.003-04:00

the garden got irrigated twice while we were in utah. the kids and cousins had lots of fun playing in the ditches.

they also had lots of fun playing in nana's and aunt nancy's (who lives next door) yards.

#5 the school bus

2008-11-01T09:53:00.004-04:00

one reason we drove out to utah was to buy a lift van! the van has been a wonderful blessing. it has good pick-up speed, gets better gas mileage than our mini-van did, amazing head clearance and even seat warmers (which i did appreciate this past week when the weather was really cold) in addition to that absolutely wonderful, amazing, save my aching back lift. when we were in utah, one of my nephews kept referring to our van as the school bus. we took a drive through the canyons with the youngest hinckley grandchildren (minus mallory and baby jane). i just love this pic (courtesy of ann) of everyone ready for the drive. when we got back home to connecticut, the back seat came out and we put in straps to secure the wheelchair.

#4 baby ian and baby jane

2008-11-01T09:22:00.004-04:00

we had a new nephew (my side) and a new niece (pat's side) to meet when we went to utah. we were so glad to be able to meet them when they were still so precious and are humbled to realize how big they will be the next time we see them (in december - yeah!).

the girls with baby ian.

can't say the best pic of me but i just adore when i can hold a baby this way. newborns are just so kissable.

the happy family: tim, ashley and ian.

here's gracie with baby jane. grace loved holding jane and would spend hours (if she could) bouncing jane on the therapy ball (something jane loved) while watching disney channel (which according to my brother-in-law is basically watching all the plots from "saved by the bell" in a slightly different format. i never had the pleasure with "saved by the bell" -yes, i'm that old - but glad i wasn't the one downstairs while grace did this. thanks, ann & brian for letting her get her disney channel fix.)

#6 nana's (and brian's) garden

2008-11-01T08:31:00.007-04:00

my mother-in-law has an amazing garden/yard. i think she grows almost all her vegetables from seed. this year, my brother-in-law helped/took over/ became obssesed with the garden too and the results were quite impressive.

i loved how the onions grew partially above the ground.

digging up the potatoes. it was the first time i had seen it done as despite the fact that my grandparents and great-grandparents lived on a farm, their jobs were in the city. they employed a man to run the farm (that really was more for show and eggs - which i hated egging the chickens by the way).

here's my niece, anna, tasting the flower from the onion plant (yes, it tasted like onion). anna was gracious enough to pose for me when i asked her.

bonus pic of gracie's nature people that she created.

#3 hinckleys reunited

2008-10-31T21:31:00.011-04:00

hinckley circle time (explanation to follow - jeanie - i couldn't download the pic you sent me of "pat leading the music." could you resend it?)

despite the sad circumstances, it was very nice to gather with pat's family this past july. every night we would gather outside for what pat eventually coined "circle time." i only seem to have gotten the camera out for one of these (and it might have been day, not evening cause little ones around), and have put together a slide show from the pictures i took. my nephews were especially photogenic that day/evening/whatever. i also enjoy the pics of our surroundings. my mother-in-law lives on such a beautiful, secluded (for being in a city) piece of property. it always feels like a haven away from the world when i visit.

# 8 misc. summer fun

2008-10-31T15:12:00.009-04:00

i promised myself that i would be all caught up with my summer posts by halloween. so here it is halloween and i'm finally getting around to it (can we say procrastination?). i'm mainly doing this for my own record so feel free to skip the next myriad of posts.

summer would not be complete without swimming. every one of my kids loves the water as do i. we could all spend hours in the pool and greatly appreciate our friends' who have pools and allow us an escape on those hot summer days.

history was made this summer when grace actually let me pull out one of her "hanging by a thread" loose teeth. i just love these pics because you can see how scared she was to let me do it. we also had an incident this fall where i had to pull out an in-grown eyelash with a pair of tweezers. it took her a couple of days and many attempts, but she finally was able to compose herself enough for me to have the 10 seconds that i needed to pull it out.

we did do a few outings with a playgroup from our local ward (congregation). here are the kids seeing the animals at the U Conn. the next stop for this particular outing was to get ice cream from the dairy bar (yum!).

pat and grace revisited the spot of gracie's "infamous" bike accident from summer 2007. she lost control after going down that hill and went into the ditch. luckily, there was no water in it the previous summer.
pat and grace before a daddy/daughter activity at church. (note our old green van in background).

no summer is complete without family walks and snuggles from older siblings.

by grace

2008-10-30T11:22:00.001-04:00

gracie's art teacher at school uses this site to post some of her artwork. pretty fun.

hinckley happenings

2008-10-29T21:40:00.007-04:00

setting: grace's room, just before bed.
grace (lamenting): "why hasn't the tooth fairy come? it's been four days; usually it only takes her a couple of days."
yes, we are the world's lamest parents; (it had only been 3 nights - not that makes a much of a difference). i actually think grace must know the truth about the tooth fairy, but i think she wisely pretends not to know so that she can assure the visits (read money) still happen.

setting: i am in the living room with fritz and jake. from my vantage point, i can see lily in the dining room with her hands behind her back and a mischievious look on her face.
me: "lily, what are you doing?"
lily: "nothing."
lily (after some thought and recognizing that i'm not buying it): "praying."
oh yeah, we are in trouble with this one. what she was doing was sneaking halloween candy.

setting: pat is on his way to work. i'm looking at a picture of how i want to cut my hair (after a year and a half of growing it out, i think i finally have enough to donate.)
me (to pat): "so how bad am i going to look being fat with short hair?"
pat: [pause, silence]
me: "i guess that's one of those loaded questions that husbands shouldn't answer."
pat: "good-bye. i love you."
this is where pat not being the most talkative being is a very good thing.

finally, this morning when i woke up, i realized that i forgot (oh, the horror) to place my garnet hill order last night! i heart garnet hill, but it's out of my price range, so i usually just drool. but yesterday i got an email for an additional 20% off their october sale AND i had a $20 off coupon i could use. alas, sorrow, the sale ended last night and now the what would have been $20 skirt for grace is now $29, the what would have been $17 dress for lily is $40 and the what would have been $8 lunch bag is $16. oh well, there's usually clearances again in january. my husband is pretty happy that i didn't spend money that we don't really have.
yes, i do realize that i'm pathetic and that there are starving children in the world.

just a final note about that whole mammagram post. thanks to those who pointed out it's not a big deal. (i was exagerrating for humor; i wasn't that freaked out about it - just thought whoa, i'm getting old). in all seriousness, my grandma got breast cancer in her 40's so early screening is good idea and i will be getting one soon.

eleven

2008-10-25T18:38:00.007-04:00

side note - when i was 11, i was at an amusement park with my grandparents. i chose to race the purple airplane (lavendar was my fave color at the time. this was the only time in my life where my favorite color wasn't green; it didn't last for more than a year). well, that plane must have been broken because i kept winning. and every time you won, you got to exchange for a bigger stuffed animal. since i was there with my grandparents not my parents, they kept paying for me to play until i had the biggest purple gorilla in my possession. there was also quite a big line behind my airplane by the time i was finished. the number of the airplane was 11 and ever since then it has been my favorite number.

the purpose of this post though is to recap the past eleven days, so without further rambling (although some bullets do tend to ramble), i give you highlights from the past 11 days:

had a school team meeting for jake in which i had to bring fritz. i had the bright idea that if i dropped lily off at preschool at the top of main street, and then made fritzy walk down the, let's say, 11 blocks to jake's school that he would be tired/exhausted (i.e. sit still for meeting). well, after several pulling on legs, laying down on pavement moments, i ended up carrying him most of the way. not one of my more brilliant moves.
paid $314 vet bill for a regular check-up ($150 of that was buying ahead on basic medicines and another $50 or so for vaccines). also took jake to his physiatrist which he has seen on a monthly basis since he had his baclofen pump put in last december. we are finally at the right levels and don't have to seem the physiatrist again to february. yeah!
attended a big conference at perkins school for the blind about education of visually impaired and/or multi-handicapped kids. (once again, i now want to move to massachusettes so that jake can go to this school.) the key note speaker was a deaf/blind teacher from texas. she was amazing. maybe not the most organized speaker, but every other sentence was a pearl of wisdom. i could have listened to her all day.
had two speech sessions for fritz. he's just talking more and more. some of my faves are when he comes in and says: "what you doing, mommy?", "i found ______" (whenever he sees something he wants to point out to you), "blankie gone." (said very dramatically and is his way of saying "where are my blankies?"), singing the alphabet song and, of course, the ever present "thank you, mommy" which is very clear now and whose charm comes mainly from the frequency and mundaneness of some of the things i do that warrant his thanks.
found a new book club to join and attended my first meeting.
got the whole family all dressed up for a spectacular halloween party.
had to pull over about six times on a drive to my parents house because our van's fuel filter was clogged and it kept losing power. had to then leave my van in new york to be fixed and drove my dad's mazda 5 with satellite radio home. this was then my car for the next three days. became a huge fan of satellite radio. i especially loved the broadway channel and had fun remebering some songs i hadn't heard for years. (really, stacey, how could i have forgotten about "anthem" from chess. i think i'll start making itune download requests to pat.)
took my youngest two kids to dondero orchards for apple picking and warm cider donuts. i heart. fall.
started eating sugar (other than my lindt truffle reward) again. i do have a rule that i can't have one of my lindt truffle balls if i've eaten sugar that day. it's amazing how i really will hold off on sugar some days so i can have my truffle. and now at least when i eat my truffles, it's only one rather than three or so. i'm considering this progress. now if i could only convince my scale that it's progress too.
was a little surprised that pat offered to take the girls to high school musical 3 (they went this afternoon.) but when he got home and said the best parts of the movie were seeing clips of wasatch mountains, i understood better.
celebrated the birthday of a one year old and 30 year old (both of whom are very dear to me). at the 30 year old's celebration, we tried to re-enact that charlie's angels pose. the results were pretty good, but i'm feeling the need to perfect this shot. i might be making my friends continue to pose for me. kudos to tice natalie d. for having such a straight face.

pumpkin carving

2008-10-25T18:23:00.004-04:00

my parents had my three youngest kids last saturday while pat and i went to a conference. they took my kids to a corn maze and pumpkin patch. pat, jake and i joined them on saturday night. sunday afternoon, we all carved pumpkins together. i was happy with how they turned out, but fear they will be rotten by halloween. thus, we took some pics last night.

grace chose the bat stencil and helped for about 3/4 of the time before turning it completely over to nanna nan to finish.

lily chose bits and pieces from different stencils to come up with her face.

i chose the ghost for fritz.

before sunset, all lit up.

after sunset, all lit up.

hurst farm

2008-10-25T17:59:00.008-04:00

this past wednesday, we took a trip to hurst farm with lily's preschool class.

lily with her teachers.

first the tractor took us to the turnip field where lily and fritz got to each pick two turnips.

then the tractor took us to the fields to feed the cows...

...and goats.

then back on the tractor again where we were too distracted to look at mom.

the final stop on the tractor ride was the pumpkin patch.

after a snack, the kiddos were able to walk around a mini corn maze (my battery had died by then). then time for home (after of course, mom went into the farm store; i just can't seem to resist them).

well played

2008-10-20T22:42:00.004-04:00

well played #1
for dinner tonight, i made potatoe leek soup. grace, my picky eater / not a fan of onions daughter, walks in the kitchen when just the leek and butter are cooking in the pan.

grace: "what's for dinner?"

me: "potato soup."

grace: "what's that cooking in the pan?"

me: "it's a vegetable."

grace: "what kind of vegetable?"

me: "leek."

grace: "what does leek taste like?"

me, (very enthusiastically): "oh grace, wait and be surprised."

later at dinner:

grace: "i just love this soup."

yes, on occasion i can be capable of some brilliant parenting. i doubt grace would have loved the soup so much if she knew leek was in the onion family. oh, and it probably didn't hurt that dinner was really late tonight and she was starving.

well played #2
how fun was it to have phil's dad at the pit stop on amazing race last night? i still stand by my belief that phil is the best reality t.v. host.
the clip doesn't show the best part where phil's dad offers to give the last team a hug because he feels so bad for them. the dad is also crying with the team. so sweet.

well played #3
for whatever reasons, my youngest two love caillou. for those who haven't had the pleasure, caillou is "...just a kid whose four" (trust me, the theme song is going through my head as i write this) and also happens to have the whiniest voice to hit the planet. but today, as my kids were watching, i overheard a difference. sure enough there was a new episode, and "they" (producers, directors, voice animators, angels, godsends??) decided to have caillou speak in a voice about 30 DECIBELS lower than usual!!! hallelujah!! how sweet it is! so thank you, thank you PBS for listening to what i can only imagine was throngs of preschool parents begging for respite from that voice. (really isn't having to hear our own children when they whine enough?)
yes, i do realize that i could just say "no" to my kids watching this show; but alas, i have some weak parenting skills too. sometimes it's just easier to give them what they want, n'est-ce pas?

quote of the (yester)day

2008-10-15T08:02:00.003-04:00

"i can be talkative!"* -Pat

*in fairness to pat, he did add a "sort of" after a brief pause (and maybe incredulous gasp from me). in actuality, i'm proud of him. he was telling me how in a recent business meeting, he had to be the one to keep the conversation going. i'm all for pat being talkative, and would even welcome more posts by him on this blog.

2 hours 45 minutes and 50 seconds

2008-10-12T01:04:00.010-04:00

She did it! April ran (and completed) the Hartford Half Marathon. I don't know if this is her official time, but according to the photo... Speaking for the family, we are all very proud of her determination (or is that stubborness?) in setting a goal and fulfilling it.

At risk of sharing an "unauthorized" photo, here is her cheering section that saw her just after mile 10.

Way to go April!!!

(Just to be clear, this is Pat writing (as you can tell by the use of Capitalization), not April writing about herself - that would be silly, and she would never do that.)

edits by april: my net time was 2:40:34! i'm the one in the pink shirt. i should have known when pat offered me to wear his running shirt that i looked bad (he never makes outfit suggestions), but instead i wore the XL shirt i had bought the day before and was too tight on me. hence no more pics, people. i'll be running again next year and i better be thinner by then! who wants to join me? if anything, i think i proved anyone can do it. (oh, and for the record, the man with one leg who used crutches came in faster than me. so again, anyone can do it.)

p.s. i must be silly since i'm writing about myself, but i think you all knew that anyway.

she can vote!

2008-10-08T22:55:00.006-04:00

today i went to the federal court in hartford to watch my dear friend, chelsea, be naturalized as a citizen of the united states. it was a great experience. i loved seeing all the nicely dressed people ready to become u.s. citizens. i believe that there were 54 people receiving their citizenship, representing 26 countries. here's chelsea and her family waiting to go up and receive her certificate. her husband and baby are already american citizens and so i joked that her son could always rub it in that he was a citizen first. (yeah, once again, i know i'm so funny.)

here's chelsea with the judge (who had already taken off her zebra striped reading glasses). when she first came in, the judge asked the requests and the court officer said how many people were requesting citizenships and how many name changes. the judge than granted those requests. then all the nominees for citizenship were asked to stand and raise their right hands while the clerk read an oath of allegiance (which repeatedly mentioned being willing to bear arms and go to war when ordered to by law) to which all the nominees repsonded: "i will." then the judge stepped down and awarded the certificates and the clerk became the "court photographer". i loved hearing where all the individuals were from and seeing them gratefully come up and receive their citizenship. there were even a couple of shall we say "quite senior" nominees, and i was especially touched to see it mattered to them.

chelsea and her family with the judge.

chelsea and her cheering squad outside the court building. immediately after this picture, chelsea went to register to vote!!!

i helped "americanize" chelsea more by making her do the charlie's angels pose with me. although in this picture, i think i was the only one really in character. i love how laurel looks like she's doing a "tina fey pose of sarah palin" (did that make sense? if not, watch this clip).
yeah, and i didn't quite remember the pose right. laurel was holding the "rifle"* but i guess she was suppose to be in the middle. next time i find someone crazy enough to do the pic with me, i'll do better. (for the record: my sister, cousin brit and i have done this pose on a couple of occasions now.)

*pat told me this morning that it's a walkie-talkie, not a rifle. i forget that charlie's angels was in the day when life was still sacred on t.v. and rather than being shot people were knocked out cold by a swift kick, a hefty punch or a strong whack over the head with a ceramic plate. i'm feeling the need to redo this pic; tice and nat - are you up for it on tuesday?

and so it begins...

2008-10-08T22:50:00.003-04:00

i made this for pat's birthday, this (scroll down a little) for a social at my house, and this for my stepmother's birthday. i've bought raspberry herbal tea which my friend kristen has told me will get rid of my sugar cravings. now it's time for the diet to begin. my goal: no sweets until jake's birthday on nov. 15th (i will allow myself one of these each night if i have eaten no sugar that day), i will eat more fruits and vegetables (at least 3 servings daily), i will eat smaller portions, i will snack frequently so that i will not get too hungry and overeat.

I'm hoping that posting on this blog will actually commit me to start this regiment as leaving a comment on my sister-in-law's blog that i would start dieting has done nothing.

she's baaaack!!!

2008-10-08T22:49:00.000-04:00

this what lily chose to wear to school the other day: polka dot tights, flowered shirt, flowered sundress, flowered sweater, striped capris, blue socks (on top of tights) and shoes. pat told me i was just feeding the fire when i suggested she wear her dalmation coat with it. yes, pat had the honor of bringing her to school that day.

pray tell me

2008-10-03T07:57:00.003-04:00

when, pray tell me, did i get so old that my doctor would just casually ask during a physical if i've had a mammogram??!! what?? are you kidding me??!! she explained that "they" recommend you have a mammogram by age forty as a baseline, but i am 3 1/2 (practically 4 - well, not really - but not quite 3 1/2 yet either) glorious years away from that dreaded number (30 really wasn't bad, but i have mixed feelings about 40). so i think i will be waiting a little while before i do that rite of passage.

i also had some regular blood work done and i am secretly hoping that they call back and tell me how low my thyroid is and give me medicines to just zap all this extra weight away. (i don't really want health problems; it's just sounds like a nice thought sometimes.) most likely, i will have to lose the weight the good old-fashioned way. more on this later.

almost

2008-09-30T14:53:00.002-04:00

on sunday, lily surprised me by choosing to wear an april cornell petticoat and dress. what? an outfit that was meant to go together and nothing odd to go with it (like adult sized velvet sock covers she had worn a previous week). then yesterday for school, she chose one shirt and one pair of pants to wear with no dress or skirt to go on top. i started to think maybe seeing other kids dressed "normally" at school was starting to rub off on her, until we did her hair.

yeah, that's right. she chose three ponytails, one of which (and only one) to be in a "nobby" (our family word for bun like ponytail) style, and i knew my lily was still in there. today she was back to her normal dressing routine. (i think we started out with five outfits layered on top of each other and she narrowed it down to leggings, shirt, knee socks and skirt by the time we left for school - i still stand by my too much laundry to do rule.)
sorry for the blurry pics; i'm struggling with my camera lately. help, annie!

sept. 26th

2008-09-29T16:12:00.006-04:00

last friday was pat's birthday. he turned 25 a month after we were married and so i remember putting happy "quarter" of a century old notes all over our apartment. (i would stick a real quarter instead of using the word quarter; i know i'm so funny.) last month, i told you that we have been married for 13 years, so i'll let you do the math on how old patrick is.

for his birthday, the kids made cards and i decorated with pom-poms and a banner. lily picked out the shirt that he was wearing in picture above as his gift. we went out to dinner with our good friends (pictured below) while their daughter watched our kids and then we all enjoyed cheesecake (which is what i always make pat on his birthday.)

now for the mush. i was fortunate to marry a man with a heart of gold that really could be nominated for sainthood and that's not just because his name is patrick. (not that i don't gripe or complain from time to time.) as luck would have it, pat probably has less patience as a result of being married to me (yeah, i'm a little intense) than the inverse (wouldn't it have been nice for me to be more patient?) sometimes when i think of our relationship, i am reminded of the final scene of zorba the greek. [go here and then get to 1:10 if you want to watch yourself, but you must watch the dancing as well - it's the best part.] zorba tells the british guy (i forget his name) that he lacks only one thing: "madness." well, pat's the type of guy who never locks his keys in the car (i've done it twice w/kids - who knows how many times sans kids), thinks things through, never had a ticket, etc.... but hopefully, i've helped him embrace a little "madness" over the years.

so a very, happy, belated blog birthday, my love. oh and thank you for the good credit and more controlled driving (at least let's hope i drive a little slower due to you)! someday, i will make you re-enact that scene with me, dancing and all. i'll let you guess which one of us will be zorba.

first days

2008-09-25T08:42:00.005-04:00

yeah, even though i haven't blogged about it, my kids are all back in school. i only got a pic of lily's first day though.

grace started back on august 25th. the magnet school opened up its doors to a lot more kids from the suburbs this year and as a result grace only has two boys from her class last year in her current class. this hasn't phased her at all; the first day, she came home having made new friends and has adjusted well to fourth grade (minus the first week of school where she is always super crabby and tired and i never seem to have enough patience, but we're through that and on a routine again).

lily started preschool one week after labor day (sept. 8th). when we got to her classroom door, she just waved good-bye to me and went right in. she was more than ready for school and has adjusted just fine. she picked out her first day of school outfit at the store; she wanted it to be all yellow which is her favorite color. she continues to pick out her own clothes for school and is queen of layering. her outfits often include pants and a shirt with a dress over it. i did put my foot down one day when she wanted to wear three outfits layered on top of each other (i didn't want the laundry), but in general i give her freedom and she definitely marches (quite insistently) to her own fashion drum.

now to jake's first day. ugh. (for those who know the story, just skip this). jake transitioned from fifth to sixth grade this year. this year also marked the opening of the brand new sixth grade academy in our town (i.e. new not so friendly wheelchair building, completely new staff - his teacher was officially signed the week before school started, etc). jake's aid/para of seven years decided not to continue to middle school with him. i decided to personally bring him to school the first day of school which was august 27th. basically, there was no aid for jake when i arrived and no one knew why there wasn't or who was suppose to be his aid. while the nurse tried to (unsuccessfully) figure out what was going on, i was left in a room by myself with jake for about 40 minutes. while in this room, fear started to overwhelm me. i had recently learned that most of the good paras/aids like to stay in elementary schools and decide not to move on with their child(ren). i started to worry about what caliber of person we would be able to find to work with jake? i worried who would be willing to diaper him as he got big? who would be willing to lift him? this combined with the frustration of being at a school where the teachers and staff did not know who jake was and remembering how utterly overwhelmed jake's teacher looked (trust me, he was that first day), i found myself not able to keep it together and began crying. never a good thing because i usually can't remain composed once the tears start. this was the case and i ended up being sent home with jake hardly able to utter a word as i left the building.

now for the tender mercies. thankfully, my dad was in town that morning on business and had my two youngest kids. i was able to go on a walk with jake when i got home and listened to this talk by president monson where he talked about how important it was to build strong foundations in our homes. then i listened to my brother-in-law's demo tape that he sent us that has a rendition of "how firm a foundation." i was struck by the following words: "...i will be with thee, thy troubles to bless, and sanctify to thee thy deepest distress." when it comes to taking care of jake, i think you start to get to the deepest parts of my heart. i took great comfort that if i trusted in the Lord that he could and would sanctify this distress. i need not be overwhelmed with worry for things i had no control (like who jake's para would be), but rather need to worry about making my foundations strong at home and providing a safe haven for my family. (this is becoming more evident as grace gets older and has to deal with more stress at school). then another tender mercy was a loving note that arrived the next day from a friend who moved away a couple of years ago. the note was just written because she was thinking of me and felt the need to write. this served as a reminder that the Lord was personally aware of me.

now for the sanctification of my deepest distress. the new special ed. director called me back that afternoon and explained to me that the school had hired someone to be with jake, but that the person chose not to continue with the job and didn't bother to notify the school of this decision. since then, we have found a wonderful para for jake. we've also had a huge team meeting and have another one in a couple of weeks. there is still much to be worked out, but i feel that i am on top of things in way i wouldn't have been if the start hadn't been so bad. we are getting there and through all of this i've seen the heart of a lot of the new staff that will be working with jake, and they really do have a lot of heart and love for jake, and so i feel blessed.

p.s. the students on that first day did know jake and lots of them said "hi" to him when we first arrived (melts your heart, right?). last night at the open house, jake's teacher had a bulletin board entitled: "our heroes" and he had put a picture of jake's face on batman and all of the other classmates on other superheroes. he said one of the paras suggested putting their faces on pumpkins, but he was like "no, we'll do something else." i do think it's fun that his teacher is a guy and he really does seem to love working with these kids.

p.p.s. @annie and brian - lily will request to listen to "brian singing" when we're in the car.

not of the snot variety

2008-09-25T08:31:00.002-04:00

the other day, i was bragging to pat how i bought a book light for only $2 at christmas tree shops (a fantastic northeast store - think upscale big lots). his response was something like "cheap isn't necessarily good." i just grumbled in my head about how i saved money, but sure enough, that night when i went to use the light, it fizzed out after about ten minutes of use. Booger.

i have taken to wearing my reading glasses some days for fun. previous to this, the only time i would wear glasses was when i had my sunglasses, and i have this bad habit of sometimes staring longer than normal at other drivers when i'm in sunglasses because i figure they can't see me looking. well, i've caught myself doing this a few times in my reading glasses. Booger.

finally, who do you think looks more pregnant.

A. cute six month preggie friend

B. me: mom of four kids who keeps getting asked if she's pregnant, but ISN'T (sorry i made grace take this with fancy camera and must have had it on wrong settings. didn't look so blurry after we took it).

yeah, you guessed it, BOOGER!

for your viewing pleasure

2008-09-15T12:53:00.003-04:00

when pat told me tha tina fey was returning to SNL to play sarah palin, we both wanted to stay up and watch it (tina fey just looks like sarah palin). alas parenting took over and we slept through it. luckily, we found the clip. enjoy!! you can thank me later. (oh, and "the michael phelps diet link" on the side is pretty funny too. it reminded me of your post, kaylene.)

air show

2008-09-10T22:29:00.003-04:00

last saturday, we went to massachusettes to an air show. the highlight of the show was a performance by the air force thunderbirds. they surprised/scared all of us when they detract your attention to watching four planes performing a formation when all of a sudden a fifth plane goes screeching across the sky. lily got a little shaken up by it, but it was a pretty cool move and by far they got the majority of the audience with their trick.

the harrier plane (pictured below) can hover in the air and make vertical landings.

this is some of the kids with the thunderbirds doctor. if she grounds one pilot, it becomes are five man show and if she grounds the commander, the performance is cancelled. there are no back-up pilots since the training is continuous and intense.

friends of ours were also at the air show. evan kept trying to tackle (with good success) lily's friend, anabelle. anabelle was a great sport about it, but we chuckled about how many years until this would be inappropriate.

despite the clouds, it was a humid day and we all got sunburns. here are some of the kids cooling off on some ice that had been dumped out of a cooler.

my apologies

2008-09-10T22:05:00.006-04:00

in regards to my last post, my apologies to any woman who has longed to hear the word "mom" and for whatever reason has not been able to. please know i am grateful to have children in my home and know this time will pass too quickly. know too that i would probably give my right arm to hear jake utter the word "mom." at the same time, there are moments (many) where i wish i could pretend my name was "penelope" and ignore the cries (and yes, they are cries/wails/whines, etc) of help/want/tattling, etc... or just wish they would ask dad.

my apologies also to any who don't have a cute, two year old in their home who slurs together the phrase: "thank you ma" (which sounds something like - tane - U -maa) every time you do something for him. (it just melts my heart every time; i need to get it on tape before he learns to annunciate better.)

dearer than any other

2008-09-10T15:16:00.006-04:00

i'm currently taking applications for anyone who answers to the word "mom/mommy" and would like to spend a day with me. thanks nat, for reminding us why a name that is "dearer than other" can also be so infuriating and nails on a chalkboardish!

before you feel too bad for me, the hubster did let me go on an hour run last night. i have commitments tonight (whole family) and tomorrow night (sans kids). earlier this week i was feeling bad about being gone so many nights in a week, but now the idea is sounding grand.

city folk go to the country

2008-09-07T22:28:00.006-04:00

while in vermont, we stayed with my good friend from high school, darlene and her husband gerry. we felt that we were at a bed and breakfast, they took such good care of us. we woke to pancakes one morning and waffles with berries and whip cream the next. dinner too was usually quite the spread.

sunday night, we had a campfire and s'mores and then looked at the stars. the sky was so dark against the sky; it made me realize how urban my life is. it was so peaceful just being out in the country.

a big bonus was that dar's parents were there too. they're the only other people other than my parents that i've called "mom" and "dad"; so it was great to be around them as well.
dar has a pond on her property. the kids enjoyed walking down to it and looking for frogs.

i like this pic of lily.

gerry was willing to pose for me; just another sign that dar chose well.

yeah, yours truly fell into the pond while trying to catch a frog. the thing that bugged me the most is that i didn't get a frog.

here's the beaver dam we passed on a walk by their house. their property and surrounding area was so beautiful.
oh, and for those who read the "tagged" post, the picture of a nickname of a good friend was "DAR" for daughters of the american revolution.

labor day weekend

2008-09-07T22:06:00.004-04:00

we went up to vermont on labor day weekend. we visited my niece, chelsea, and her husband, jake on sunday. we went to church with them and it was loads of fun (note huge sarcasm here) introducing myself as her aunt (my niece is in graduate school AND married). after church, we went back to their place. they live in the cute house pictured below. it used to be a hotel; their bedroom used to be a favorite suite for president theodore roosevelt. fun, huh?

here are my kids throwing dirt across the street from their place. this was one of those "stop that, but let me take a picture first" parenting moments.

here we are at the gazebo across from their house. yeah, that's me, just chatting away. typical.

here are my kids hanging out at the campus of the vermont law school where chelsea goes to school. the law school is just a five minute walk away and is on chelsea street. chelsea had included a handwritten note on her application saying something like "it's on chelsea street - it's meant to be."

after lunch, we went to the joseph smith birthplace memorial. the gardens are beautiful as was the weather.

our little poser.

susan - sorry i am late posting this. chelsea and jake looked great and they have a nice set-up there. it was fun to see them.

who says 13 isn't lucky?

2008-08-26T22:49:00.000-04:00

pat and i celebrated thirteen years of wedded bliss this past sunday. here's a pic from one anniversary weekend getaway to boston about six years ago (when we still looked young and i was thinner). anyhoo, no getaways this year. he gave me flowers and i made him a nice dinner and we both had picked out and purchased our own gifts previous to our anniversary (sounds like 13 years, eh?).

i feel like i should say something deep here, but all i can think to say is how lucky i am to have pat in my life. no regrets here.

olympic loving

2008-08-26T10:13:00.002-04:00

ok, i just got a little teary-eyed watching a video of highlights from the beijing olympics. so i thought i would do a post of some of my faves from these olympics (which i thouroughly enjoyed and believe have already admitted to being sucked in).

*i loved the little boy who carried the flag for china along with yao ming. he survived the most recent earthquake in china even though 20 of his 30 classmates did not. after he freed himself, he returned to the rubble and helped a couple of his classmates to escape. later, when asked why he returned to help, he explained that he was a hall monitor (which meant he had been responsible for helping kids at school).

*i appreciated what the men's volleyball coach had to say when asked what an olympic gold medal would mean to him in lieu of his father-in-law's death at the beginning at the olympics. he responded that the medal might actually mean less since he had just gotten a pretty strong reminder on what's important in life. having said that, he acknowledged how hard his team was trying in honor of his mother and father-in-law and that that meant a lot to him. then his team amazingly went on to win the gold despite the odds not being in their favor at all.

*i. love. michael. phelps. and teammates. what a fun ride they gave us.

*i loved the women's beach volley ball team of may-treanor/walsh. they were just so strong and solid. (although i never did quite get why a women's volleyball team needed bikini clad cheerleaders??!!)

*i loved that america has a big enough heart for two amazing olympic female gymnasts: nastia lukin and shawn johnson.

thanks to all those who strive for the best in them.

winter quarters

2008-08-22T14:32:00.001-04:00

next stop was winter quarters, nebraska which was a resting stop for mormon pioneers on their trek west to utah. the kids got to be in dress-ups for the whole tour and after that lily kept asking if we could go back to the place with dress-ups (until we reached nana jean's dress-ups in utah anyway). lily also loved stacking the wagons below with all the supplies. the top left pic is the space a family would have on a ship if they came over from europe.

across the street from the visitors center is the winter quarters temple and a cemetary where a lot of pioneers were buried. both of these places are just very serene to me.

the side of the hill between the cemetary and street was filled with lilies. lily loves pointing out lily flowers wherever we are (even driving in a car).

p.s. just a side note that north platte, nebraska is a popular place to stop for travelers. the holiday inn express told us that they usually turn away 100 people a night as they called about 5 or more hotels to find one for us. we ended up in a crummy room at motel six, but since i think we were there for only 5-6 hours of sleep, guess it didn't matter.

p.p.s. when we would tell lily that we were getting close to utah, she would as if we were going to the airpot now? (she and her sister took a trip to utah via airplane in february.)

#2 "go west, young man"

2008-08-22T07:31:00.005-04:00

...or rather go west, slightly middle-aged family.*

and go west, we did. we left for utah on july 3rd and spent the 4th with pat's sister's family in chicago where we saw this awesome license plate:

the license cover said something like: "hell yeah, i'm a neil diamond fan".

the fourth was spent relaxing with family. we went to the park where uncle blake showed the girls the art of "long-distance shoe throws while swinging." it doesn't take much to see gracie's competitive side and she worked on it until she could get her shoe about as far as her uncle.

the girls and their cousins played together splendidly!! i didn't get any pics of them all together except when they were climbing these trees. i was also able to run on the trails that are literally just off their backyard and found in my sister-in-law, mary, a "so you think you can dance" buddy (something i've wanted for a while. next summer i'll be calling her after every elimination). it was a good time.

*don't even think about questioning the use of the word "slightly" in that phrase

pics of our family

2008-08-20T07:56:00.006-04:00

our family pics. my only regret (since i always seem to have one) is not keeping lily in the polka dot dress. i think it would've added more contrast.

love this pic - even if it looks like fritzy is filling his diaper (which he wasn't)

this is probably my fave but i had trouble making it our banner for our blog. my sister-in-law will try to make a banner out of it for me next - so stay tuned.

individual pics of the kids

this was the mood evan was in most of the time, so katherine deserves credit for getting such a great picture of him (above).

Thank You, Katherine!!!!!

my sister's family

2008-08-20T07:54:00.001-04:00

love this pic of niece and nephew

madelaine claire

andrew kurt

the fam (and if you look close enough, my brother-in-law is using one of his slightly crazy faces. he's known for the faces he can make and the voices he can imitate)

#9 katherine's pics of our family

2008-08-20T07:53:00.005-04:00

last year, we tried to get a big family picture of my mom's side of my family. for some reason, we thought Target could handle our big group. the end result: a picture where my mom and jake were shown only from the head up. this year, thankfully my friend's very talented sister, katherine came to town. we took the following pics in may in honor of my opa turning 90.

the whole group

being silly which comes naturally to most of us. if you notice in this picture, my mom doesn't have a clue what we're all doing and pat is trying to duck out of making a fool of himself.

my mom and her girls

katherine always does such a beautiful job. check out her blog by clicking on icon below.

#11 tagged

2008-08-13T14:53:00.010-04:00

i've been tagged a couple of times lately and i haven't done anything. i found this "tag" thingy on the sister of my friend i grew up with blog (are you still with me?) and thought it was fun. so here's my response lindsey and michele - feel free to do this too - it does seem fun.

here's how it works: for each question, look up the answer in a Google Image search. Then choose your favorite image from the first page of results only. You get some fun and often CRYPTIC answers. (ok, just realized that i didn't follow the instructions. i didn't do a google image search and i sometimes would scroll through a few pages. sorry everyone. still was fun though).

1. my favorite food

2. my college degree

3. my first job

4. my middle name

5. a former pet

6. my favorite animal

7. my first name

8. my favorite color

9. (a)/ my favorite object

9. nickname of a best friend

10. a place i would like to visit

11. where i grew up

12. what i am doing right now

13. my age

14. one of my bad habits