This is taken from a page in Hannah’s book…I enjoyed her list over the weekend, and I’m feeling like my head is full of randomness today as well, so here goes.

25. I have an unhealthy relationship with bread and butter. Knowing is half the battle, right?

24. I love how Jack Henry says “Santa” and I ask him multiple times a day to say it. It sounds like “see-tah” and it’s so cute!

23. I am deeply disturbed by how quickly my three boys can eat an entire bag of Goldfish crackers. Like all in one sitting.

22. While it’s true that Jack Henry IS saying a lot more words, an unsettling number of them sound like curse words. They are words that I am certain he hasn’t heard (unless he was somehow able to time-travel back to my potty mouth days), but they sound bad nonetheless. And I crack up like a 12-year-old boy when I hear them. That’s probably the problem.

21. If you’re having a baby boy and want him to grow up to be a football player, name him something like Colt McCoy. This is all I know about him, because I don’t follow college football that closely (yet I’ve still heard his name multiple times this season): 1. He is a boy. 2. He plays college football (at Texas, which I only know because I looked him up on Wikipedia). 3. His name is quite possibly the best name ever for a football player.

20. I am going to start a food journal, writing down everything I eat. I didn’t use to snack so much, but it’s becoming a problem, as evidenced by the couple of pounds I’ve already gained since a little before Halloween. And HELLO! Christmas cookies are is coming. I’m not counting points or calories. I start Monday. Who’s in?

19. I hate the word bling.

18. Mexican food and Matt and I were all MFEO. I am very happy to report that El Maguey has reopened near our house after a kitchen fire in July closed it down for months. We ate there Saturday night.

17. If big hair comes back into style, I’m golden. This humidity is not good.

16b. Teething (and, potentially a toddler’s teething breath, oh my) is my parenting kryptonite. Jack Henry’s first two-year molar has started to poke through, and I need to just curl up in a ball in the corner and wait it out. I’ll be doling out the Motrin freely. For his teething pain and my headache.

16a. A toddler who has just learned how to use the word “no” also falls under this kryptonite category. At the end of the day, I am useless. If someone even asks him his name now, he says “NO!”

15. CHRISTMAS IS 35 DAYS AWAY! YAY!

14. I’m getting a massage this weekend and I can’t stop thinking about how much I’m looking forward to it! Thanks, Heidi, for the gift card that I for some reason put off using, but can’t wait to!

13. I just found a box of wallet-sized wedding pictures in a junk drawer; I’m pondering what to do with them. Anybody want one? C’mon, don’t be shy.

12. I really think youngish bald guys are sexy. I think when you’re young and losing your hair and you have the confidence to just shave it all off, that’s really cool. Matt, it’s lucky for you that this is the case.

11. I rarely find a blog that is so funny and well-written that I have to go back and read from the beginning, but I did that with This Is How Mom Rolls.  Hilarious!  And, the author and I knew each other as children.

10. Corollary to random thought #23: Bennett is definitely going through a growth spurt, and the amount of food that he can put away at a meal is staggering. Breathtaking, really, when you’re looking at the food as dollars instead of nourishment for your growing boy.

9. Vanity sizing is my new best friend. Sorry to my other besties out there, but when a store can put me in a dress in a size that I haven’t worn since the eighth grade (and only for about two weeks at that), we’re going to be tight.

8. I hate when I buy a new makeup product and immediately hate it. I will never buy another tube of mousse mascara. They’re all bad.

7. Making Trader Joe’s pumpkin pancakes the other day brought to mind two things: 1. I am grossed out by that white connective tissue thingy in an egg, which, I have just learned by 2 seconds on Google, is called chalazae. 2. I don’t like when baking instructions tell you to just mix something until the big lumps are gone. That goes against my perfectionist nature; I feel like I haven’t finished the job I set out to do.

6. Phineas and Ferb is potentially the best kids’ show ever.

5. Seeing your children in emotional pain, I’ve decided, is the worst part of parenting that I’ve encountered so far. Rip my heart out.

4. Luke has made a poster for our wall to advertise the book fair he’s going to have the week of his birthday (how does he come up with these things?). I’m floored by how much he’s writing these days. He writes a couple of “chapter” books (each chapter is like a page long) every day, most of it stemming from the fact that they are working on “personal narratives” at school now. It blows me away that my kid knows what a personal narrative is.

3. I don’t get the Pioneer Woman/MckMama haters out there.  I mean, I completely understand if someone’s writing/stories/cooking aren’t your taste…that’s cool.  But writing posts on your blog (or starting new blogs just with that intent) trying to air other people’s supposed dirty laundry (that you don’t even know is fact)?  That’s just insecurity and jealousy of someone else’s success.  Here’s a little hint:  if you don’t like their blogs, DON’T READ THEM.  “Keepin’ it real” doesn’t mean telling the whole world every little tiny bit of your business.

2. I have to potty train Jack Henry sometime in the next calendar year. Ugh.

1. Do you want the last several minutes of your life back after reading this?

Last night was the first time I’ve ever attended a book signing, and honestly, it’s the first time I’ve ever WANTED to attend a book signing.

When Kelli emailed me several weeks ago asking if I wanted to go see The Pioneer Woman aka Ree Drummond when she came to STL, I was immediately in (and, had I seen the posting on her website first, I’d have done the emailing!). Nevermind that I had to rearrange my kids’ dentists appointments AND get a sitter because Matt wasn’t going to be home last night. Done and done – kids go to the dentist next week, and my brother Zach came and watched my boys for me, even though I’m pretty sure he thinks I’m a dork.

We got to Christ Church Cathedral, a beautiful old Episcopalian church in the city, at least an hour before the signing was set to begin. I’d guess that we were within the first 100 people there. Kelli and I were joined by two people: our friend, Bethany; and Kelli’s infant daughter, Paisley, who was there as a prop to get attention if I’m being totally honest, since we know that Ree loves babies (no shame in our game).

Ree started the evening with about a 45 minute Q-and-A that included her famous Ethel Merman impression and lots of talk about recipes and life on the ranch. She was exactly how I hoped and expected her to be: warm and funny, and genuine. Like someone you’d love to just sit and have a drink or dinner with! And she was even skinnier than she looks on her website, so I need the secret to staying that way while also apparently eating what she cooks…

Now, I have a horrible camera, but here are a few pictures from last night. The last picture is one that was on Kelli’s camera, since I had my eyes closed in the one on my camera, of course.

isn't she adorable? and a clone of her big sister elle?

she looks a little freaked out, but she was SO good all night.

a sweet girl named julie who was sitting in front of us took our picture...turns out, she reads kelli's blog! later in the evening we met another girl, hannah, who recognized both us from our blogs!

there she is - the pioneer woman!

this was totally cracking me up...her little boys were there, and unbeknownst to her or marlboro man, her husband, they went up into that little balcony thing...the whole crowd was cracking up!

it's hard to see, but her littlest guy started to throw his leg over the side before mom and dad stopped him!

whew! after a LONG wait, we finally got to meet her and get our books signed. i can't wait to try some of the new recipes!

Bethany, Kelli & Paisley, Ree, Me

Sometime last fall, Kelli invited me to be a part of a meal swap with four other girls. It was a success, so we’ve done it several times now since then. We all just make five casseroles/meals/soup/whatever and freeze them, one for each family. We all have kids, so we all try to make something relatively kid-friendly, and something that will freeze well.

This time, I made spaghetti sauce (I just posted the recipe over on Three More Bites). Because I was already chopping up lots of vegetables, I decided to make a triple batch so that I’d have plenty to freeze for myself, too, since we eat a lot of this. While it’s time consuming, I do really like batch cooking like this when I have a quick, healthy meal to pull out of the freezer! I’m also giving the girls in the swap a loaf of french bread and a box of pasta to go with the sauce.

of course, this isn't everything i used, but there was so much stuff when i unloaded groceries that i had to take a picture!

If you’re thinking this sounds like a good idea and want to start a meal swap with friends here are a few tips:

1. I’d recommend no more than five people per swap. It’s a little overwhelming to make this much food at once, and more than five would probably be too many.

2. Start simple, food-wise.

3. Plan a few weeks ahead of the date you plan to swap. That way, you can come up with something to make and have time to catch sales at the store to buy the ingredients you need.

I love having a freezer full of choices (that I didn’t have to prepare!!) for busy nights (of course, you DO have to remember to thaw a meal a day or two ahead of time), so this works for me!

For more WFMW, go to We Are THAT Family.

This won’t be an exciting post for most of you, but this is so exciting for me that I have to write it!

These pictures have nothing to do with this post; I just think they’re funny. Jack Henry was throwing a little tantrum on Saturday morning (generally, like this time, he just lays down flat on the floor without doing a lot of kicking/screaming/crying) and I thought he just looked ridiculous laying there in those jammies, so I grabbed my camera. In the second picture, you can see that he snapped out of it pretty quickly.

I recently started thinking about all of the words I hear Jack Henry say on his own. Check out this list of words that he uses independently (italics are words that I included in my last post):
Luke (totally recognizable now; he says “oook”)
Bennett
hi
bye (sounds like “bob” b/c he’s saying “bye-bye”)
dog
eat
uh oh
cheese
Elle
pizza
hoop
poop
ball
apple
juice
catch
soccer
wall
cookie
milk
choo-choo
Elmo
Grover
book
go
“your dog is nowhere near” (um, this is from the movie “Bolt.” And no one would ever know that’s what he’s saying, but he’s heard it a lot from Bennett, and I can tell by his inflection that he’s saying it!)
thank you
more
no
chess
shoes
socks
“yes i did” (also from “Bolt”)
toot
“hi dad/mom” or “bye dad/mom”
hoop
“shoot two”
Buzz
cow
Woody
cars
work
school
church
home
squirrel
cheeseburger
hot dog
banana
warm
water
diaper

He’s also occasionally putting together two words like “Bye-bye hoop” when he leaves the basement (where his new basketball hoop is).

He labels (not just identifies) these body parts:
nose
eyes
mouth
hiney
neck
hair
ear
arm
leg
hand
foot
and a couple of other body parts that I won’t mention, which my sister Hayley and SIL Michon had the pleasure of hearing last weekend.

Most of these are fairly understandable by anyone, not just me acting as translator. He also repeats any family member’s name pretty well, and knows everyone by their picture but can’t always come up with all of his aunts and uncles’ names by himself.

This is such major progress that I had to share!

Remember back in June when I posted about several areas of my house that I wanted to get organized? So I posted pictures of the areas and stuff to motivate me to actually get them cleaned up?

Riiight.

Well, I am embarrassed happy to report that a mere 4.5 months later, I’m finished with that little list I created, and I think that we can all agree that posting it for the world to see was, indeed, very motivating (eyeroll). I immediately went to work on a couple of the easier-to-tackle areas, so they aren’t quite as neat and clean as when I started this project, but they are better than before. Believe me, I have another list of longer-term projects started, but here are a few after pictures of cleaned up areas!

this room was the first one i organized back in june; it's now a little fuller and messier, but not much.

ok, compared the "before" pic, these shelves are fuller! explanation: tons of stuff just laying around the basement was moved into boxes, etc on the shelves. also, everything top right is christmas gifts...the xxx is over someone's gift that kinda showed through the bag in the picture!

remember that huge bag full of pictures that needed to go in albums? well, i printed at least that many more, and now my albums are current through the end of august. this is progress. jack henry gets album D and album F out at least twice a day. not sure why those are his favorites; his pictures aren't in those!

I am also happy to report that I threw away 3 large garbage bags of trash, donated another 4 large bags of treasures, and have all of this piled up for a garage sale in the spring:

yay!

…comment number 8, Tanya! Congratulations!

And remember to visit Sara’s site, Less Ordinary Designs, for your Christmas card/baby announcement/invitation. As I’ve said before, she’s amazing to work with! And as soon as we get our pictures taken, I’ll be choosing our card!

For another giveaway, hop on over to Heather’s blog, where she’s giving away a copy of her favorite Christmas picture book.

Couldn’t you just eat him with a spoon?

Just enjoying a beautiful day last week…he came in covered in chalk! (He only did a few of the drawings though; his brothers were making some kind of Star Wars trap out of chalk on the back patio.)

My brother just emailed me this picture of my nephew Will a couple of days ago with the following message:

Michael Scott, this one’s for you…

Are they the coolest parents ever or what?

You know I love Compassion International.

To me, the most powerful testimonies for why this program works is to hear from adults who were sponsored as a child, and what it meant to them. I recently read Peninah’s story; it’s so moving. Being involved with Compassion rescued her from a certain horrible future, as her family is part of the Maasai tribe.

We’ve loved sponsoring Jeremy over the past year. Though letters are few, we’ve loved getting to know him a little bit (you may remember that he shares a birthdate/year with Luke) and seeing him grow and change. He’s clearly learning what it means to know the Lord, and while I don’t know what his family background is exactly, I’m sure that Compassion is helping him along this path. And who knows? It’s possible that he’s teaching his family about Jesus.

Several months ago, I presented our two older boys with an idea. Their piggy banks have a section for donations, and that money has gone to a couple of causes over the last 18 months (school supplies for kids, food for food pantries). However, I suggested this time that they just continue to save their donation money until it got close to Jeremy’s birthday, and then they can give that money to him as a birthday gift. They thought this was a great idea, since they’d heard me read about the things he excitedly told us our gift last year had allowed him to get: clothes for school. While my boys can’t quite comprehend poverty, I think they’re getting a better idea through the personal contact with have with Jeremy, and how a little bit can go a long way.

I can’t wait to get the letter from Jeremy in a couple of months (we had to send our gift last month so that it gets to him in time for his birthday, and then wait for his response via mail), telling us what his mom was able to get for him for his birthday. I think it will really help solidify for the boys what it means to help others.

#####

I had intended to save this post for closer to Jeremy and Luke’s birthday, but yesterday, something really amazing happened on the internet. If you read Stuff Christians Like, you already know what I’m talking about. If not, let me quickly recap.

Jon of SCL was prompted by something his 6 y.o. daughter said about children in poverty (after seeing a picture of a starving child in a book): “That’s pretend right?” It got him thinking about finding a way to use his blog to do something big. Really big. So yesterday morning, he announced that he was partnering with the Christian organization Samaritan’s Purse to build a kindergarten in Vietnam. His daughter is a kindergartener, and seeing her love for school made this a good fit for him. He needed to raise $30,000, and hoped to do it by December 31st. And do you know what? In 18 hours’ time yesterday, the $30,000 goal was reached. Now, there were a few large donations, but primarily, this was raised by many, many people just giving whatever they could.

In scrolling through the comments, I was surprised to read someone’s comment about this being the first time they’ve ever felt compelled to donate to a cause. There is need all around us, and whether you choose to help a local food pantry, adopt a family for Thanksgiving or Christmas, sponsor a child through Compassion or a similar organization, or help with a big project like building a kindergarten (or now, maybe TWO kindergartens!), every little bit can make a big difference to someone in need. Don’t ever think that what you have to offer is too small; God can do big things with it.

I was really, really glad to get that reminder yesterday.

GIVEAWAY OVER!

You know that I love Sara’s Less Ordinary Designs personalized cards…and I know that many of you love them too, as I’ve gotten some in the mail over the last year!

Sara’s graciously offered to partner up with me again so that I can give one of YOU a free Christmas card design (or birth announcement or whatever card choose)!

Here’s our Christmas card from last year. I love it! I still can’t believe that I put a picture of my backside on our Christmas card, but whatever.

She’s great to work with and will customize your card to meet your needs! She emails you a file when the design is complete and you can have them printed wherever you choose. Or, she will print them for you if you choose to go that route. And even if you don’t win, her designs are fun, unique and really reasonably-priced…I can’t recommend her and her work more highly.

It’s really easy to enter to win.

1. Click over to Sara’s etsy site, Less Ordinary Designs. Off to the right, there’s a list of all the different types of cards she makes. Take a look around, and choose a favorite!

2. Come back here and leave a comment, including the name of your favorite design.

3. To earn an extra entry, blog about this giveaway and leave the link in the comments!

Contest ends on November 13th at 9pm. I’ll use random.org to generate the winning number and announce it here!

**This is the perfect opportunity for you to leave your first comment if you’ve never commented before!**