It's a boy! (aka "The Ghost")

I don' t know why I do this, but I've been telling my kids, particularly Sariah, that there's a ghost that lives in our van. I don' t have automatic locks, which I'm pretty sure I've mentioned before...ahem, I'm back from my short pity party. This means that I have to make sure that I'm systematic about locking the van. I haven't had problems with this until lately. For some reason, quite often lately when I get to the van I will find a door unlocked. Some of those times, I could swear that I DID lock all the doors and so it's quite a surprise. One day, I mentioned that we have a ghost that lives in the van and unlocks the doors when we are in the store. Sariah kind-of likes this idea and she asks which door the ghost unlocked this time.

Today, I carried it a little further as the wind was blowing and the swings on the swing set were blowing back and forth eerily. I told her that the ghosts were swinging and she told me that our ghost had three friends with him swinging (she had counted the swings that were moving). She even noticed some footprints that led right out to the swings and she was convinced.

Oh, and by the way, it's a boy ghost!

I Had Already Forgotten

Elijah was in preschool during the school year of 2005-06. He was so cute. That was in infamous time of the "Huh, Mom?" I LOVED his preschool "Lad and Lassie Preschool." I also loved his teachers Mrs. Cousino and Mrs. Johnston. They welcomed each individual child lovingly and cheerfully, each and every day of preschool. Sadly, I can't send Sariah there because due to low enrollment, they had to close. They did some amazing art projects; the teachers took a lot of time with each individual child. They had a lovely Christmas program where the children served punch and cookies that they had helped prepare and also sang songs (it was nice that it was affiliated with a church because I so enjoyed standing in a circle holding hands with teachers, parents and children singing all three verses of Silent Night).


Here he is doing the Christmas program. The little girl next to him is Kira, his best preschool friend. There was a cute photo in the newspaper of the two of them hugging.

But the thing that I really got on here to write about was this. Last night I was sorting through old school work. This is something that gives me great anxiety because I have not done a good job of saving important papers and keeping track of them for my kids. We have lost a lot of things in that way. But it was so fun to see the things the kids have done over the years. The thing I had forgotten was that Elijah used to bring me an envelope with the word "MOM" on the front. It was the first word he learned to spell. He would cut snowflakes or draw me pictures. Almost every day after preschool he had one of these envelopes for me. So sweet! Sweet memories!

New to us van

My dad says I need to post a picture of our new van. I had actually planned on doing that (even though I'm slightly annoyed with it for not having power locks and windows), but we got it on the same day that Nathan ripped open his foot and it just didn't seem noteworthy after that. Joseph did all the research and phone calls for this one. He wanted the Stow-n-go which he got. This means that all the seats can be folded down into the floor. This will be nice for vacation since we can actually put bags down in those holes in the floor.

One cool thing is that here in Michigan, you can transfer the plate from your old vehicle so I get to keep my "HUH MOM" license plate. I also had an extra Brigham Young University sticker, so I felt right at home. Ok, except for the fact that I have to go around and manually lock all doors and crank the handles round and round to get some air!!! It does have a CD player which we didn't have before and also the passenger seat in the front is sensitive to the amount of weight on that seat so the airbag turns off if need be. I let Nathan ride up there sometimes and it makes for a much quieter van ride!

His n' Hers

We had to have Father's Day a week early this year. Joseph will be out of town next week (who is it that decides it's ok to hold academic meetings on the weekend of Father's Day?) We had a nice celebration and the one gift that Joseph asked for was a personalized license plate. I got mine a year ago for Mother's Day.

At the time I got mine, Elijah was still a preschooler and was my talkative little pal. As we rode around doing errands, etc. he was constantly chatting, trying to figure out the world. After each little statement he made he would end with "Huh, Mom." He seemed to want me to validate what he had just said. It wasn't so cute said hundreds of times per day when I was expected to answer each one, but when I thought of immortalizing Elijah on my license plate, I liked it. Also, I thought it was much cuter when I realized that I ended a lot of my sentences with "Huh, Elijah" or insert other name depending on the circumstances. :)

Ever since then Joseph has wanted to get a personalized license plate. We've turned over ideas in our heads and then one night in a moment of genious (ha!), I hit on just the right thing! It was during a time when I was trying to get Brigham to sleep through the night on his own, so I had plenty of awake time, down in the basement on the futon, listening to him cry. I had hours to work through hundreds of six and seven letter possiblities.

We tried out some new recipes today. I made chocolate tapioca from scratch which was a big hit. Also I tried to imitate a dressing that we tasted last night at Q-doba (that food is yummy; try it if you haven't and you happen to have it in your area). It's called Cilantro-Lime Vinaigrette and was sooo tasty. We had hummus. It was my first time eating it and I'm happy to say I loved it. It came from a box though, just mix the water and oil in and you're set.

Humpffff!!

CINDI SAYS:

Joseph and I are about to turn in the resignation papers on this thing called parenting. What a fiasco! After almost 11 years of this, we still don't know what we are doing. Will we ever?

We have been trying to get Nathan and May to ward choir for about three weeks now. Today we actually took two vehicles and we were on our way ON TIME!! About half way there, I lost power steering in the van. Next, the battery light went on. Picture my eyes starting to bulge out. Then, the hot oil light went on and I noticed the oil gauge was all the way at the top and then the incessant dinging started. So I pulled over Joseph did too. He found that there was NO OIL. Luckily our neighbors were inspired to sleep in today and had recently committed to help people on the highway. They rescued us by driving some of the kids home, teaching our primary class, and driving Joseph back from the shop where our van will hopefully be fixed. So, I guess Nathan and May will have to wait another week until they can sing in the choir.

JOSEPH SAYS:

So after Cindi pulled over, I went and bought some oil. I put in 3.5 quarts to see if we could make it home. After about a half mile, the oil was all gone again. Either we have some amazing leaking hose or the engine is dead. Good thing we were already thinking about getting a new van.

At least we have one bit of good new today. Michigan's poor economic stewardship has not resulted in 20 days of lost pay for our family. The Michigan legislature and governor finally came to an agreement for balancing this year's budget that does not include 20 layoff days for all state employees.