Just a test.

Just wondering if I can actually post an entry on my blog from my phone. I've never tried before. I'm in the van with some teens, Kirsten and Josh who is horrifying eveyone by singing "honestly" by stryper at the top of his lungs with his super falsetto. Its pretty awesome... something that only few have witnessed.

Uncle of the Year Award!

The first annual "Uncle of the Year Award" is presented to.....

UNCLE MICAH!!!! (he has a blog HERE)

Everyday as we pile out of the van after school, Jessalyn heads to the mailbox to grab the mail for me. Today she was super surprised to find some mail addressed to her! She was very excited as she opened her mail and read the letter.

This past summer, while the fam was visiting for Joel's wedding, Micah and Jenn (and the kids) stayed here with us. Jessalyn had a chance to make her famous pancakes for them..and Micah (being "Micah") requested a heart shaped one. Jessalyn somehow managed to get something that almost resembled a heart...but you really had to use your imagination.

Today, Jessalyn got a heart shaped pancake shaper from Micah and she couldn't be any more excited about it! She even mentioned the fact that it was very nice of Micah to think of her when he saw it..and then to send it to her.

Thanks Micah. That was really very thoughtful and definitely made our day:)

(Funny how everyone mentions to me that certain things are dishwasher safe. Ya. EVERYTHING is dishwasher safe when you have the kind of dishwasher that we have here. *grumble grumble grumble*)

My 100th post...

I love to overhear the conversations that Ethan and Luke have together. I was giggling at Luke today as he said (while plugging his ears)...

"I need a piece of quiet"

With that I will leave you with some silly pictures of the kids....

Jessalyn being goofy...

Ethan being mad...

Luke looking confused..... with his translucent ears:)....

Owen..where are your ears??...

This is what I get. (I can't believe I'm about to tell this story)

On Sunday my friend Mel was telling me a story about how she was chasing her brother in the dark and totally bit it after tripping on a ramp...and has the bruises to prove it. I felt bad for her seeing the bruises on her arm, but admit to having laughed at her (with her) about the story. It was a good story. It was just yesterday when we sort of re-hashed the story....with me laughing, again.

Ok..so let me paint this picture for you.

Today (less than 30 min. ago) I was dropping Ethan off at school. We were sitting in the van when Ethan informed me that he had to poop. Jessalyn is already on the playground at this time, so I went over to the fence to ask her if she could help bring him inside to the bathroom. In the mean time other cars were parked all around waiting to drop their kindergarteners as well.

This is where the story gets good. I turned around to sort of jog back to the car to tell Ethan to go with Sissy and somehow managed to trip on the sidewalk between the fence and my van. In a few seconds I find myself speeding up as I try to regain my balance but just it just wasn't going to happen. The next thing I know I am going headfirst into the van...but my hands and knees on the pavement broke my fall first. It was NOT pretty. When I hit the ground I'm pretty sure I skidded quite a bit with my feet flying above me, or at least that's what it felt like. I honestly wished I couldn't have witnessed from a bystander point of view. I'm sure it was a hilarious sight. I was a bit stunned and then rolled over onto my butt and saw the looks on the faces of Jessalyn and her friend Grace. Priceless. Their jaws were dropped to the ground and then Jessalyn asks "are you ok?". At the same time the voices from above me are asking the same question as Ethan and Luke were both hanging out of the passenger side window looking down at me with complete looks of horror on their faces.

I didn't know what to do...so I started laughing. I sat there laughing for a bit..and then tried to play it off, but I knew that at least 4 or 5 people witnessed this magnificent occasion. I am completely embarrassed and actually kind of hurt as well...but I tried to brush it off the best I could. The only thing I could think was "coulda done without that"...(you know, Tommy Boy, when Chris Farley sits on the bench and it breaks.).

So as I'm driving away I call Josh thinking I could keep it together...but I was laughing so hard and wheezing and crying all at the same time, while trying to drive. He could hardly understand me.

So Mel...I guess this is what I get for making fun of you....and now I can totally feel your pain. At least we can both laugh about it, right? It sure does make for a funny story.

Here is a picture that can give a bit of a visual. This was not from today...but I was parked in this exact spot, the boys were in this exact position and Jessalyn was too. Just imagine it with more kids on the playground and cars parked all around.

...its ok, you can laugh.

This is not good.

In our house there are very few places where you can put things to keep them safe. I will put things on top of the entertainment center and on top of the piano but I really try hard not to do this because I also hate it when stuff gets cluttered in these places. The dining room table is not considered safe because 1. Owen can get into it and 2. it will likely get spilled on.

This leaves the counter in the kitchen. This is pretty much the only place where I can put things that are out of reach for him. (I still risk the 'getting spilled on' part, but that's a risk I have to be willing to take). I tend to put everything here because it is 'reachable' (I think I just made that word up) to everyone else....for example, the boys' leftover Hi-C's from McD's. Its a good place for them, because they can get to them and Owen cannot...

...until now. UGH. I came out of the bathroom the other night to find this....

Ya. This is not good. He is super proud of this. I think he feels like he fits in with Ethan and Luke who are always sitting up there together. Not only do I fear for the things that I'm trying to keep safe up there..but I fear for Owen. I have now witnessed him get up onto these stools many times...but have yet to see him try to get down on his own (because I always rescue him before hand). I can picture it now though...It will likely go down like this..

Owen scoots off the seat and thinks his feet are going to hit the floor but instead he hits his chin on the counter while he falls and his feet slip under the stool and his hands grab the top of the stool so that both he and the stool fall backwards resulting in Owen hitting the back of his head on the floor and then the stool landing on his forehead. I will be sure to post pics of his bumps after this occasion.

In the meantime, I took a few pics of him sitting up there sipping away on Ethan and Luke's 'soda' and had to laugh. Notice that in each of the following pictures he is drinking a different soda. It was like he hit the jackpot...or was some sort of addict that found a stash. He was going from one to the other..taking swig after swig as fast as possible knowing that I was going to put an end to it very soon.

He's a little "sninamanisaac". (This is what my mom calls him)

I think I've shared this before..

but I just have to share the link again. Its my cousins blog. He has his newest painting up and it is wicked cool:)
Adams Blog

It was an exciting day...

I think it was Tuesday night. Josh and I were sitting on the couch as we witnessed the event. It was down to the wire. Both characters were down to their last ounce of life and I feared the worst. I hid my head in my hands because I just couldn't watch. The anticipation of what might happen was getting the best of me. Josh stayed strong, he kept encouraging. Then it finally happened. One last swing of the light saber and it was over. I didn't dare look up from hiding my face...but I had a feeling that the outcome was a good one. It was.

At this moment Ethan (our 5 year old) was able to enjoy the feeling that comes with beating a video game...The Force Unleashed for the Wii. He has played many games but he has never played a game from beginning to end until this day. He worked hard for it. Darth Vader gave him a run for his money..but Ethan overcame him. It was down to Ethan and the Emperor (I think?) and again, was having a hard time. He even had to pause the game to get his composure as he was getting a bit frustrated. Josh cheered him on as he tried again. It took quite a long time..but he did it, without a single bit of help from anyone.

I'm not even sure if he knew that the Emperor was last guy. In fact, it was interesting to see the look on his face when he saw the credits of the game. It was one of both excitement and disappointment because the game was over. I have felt that feeling..and Josh (being the bigger gamer around here) has definitely felt that way too. You work so hard to beat a game and then to have it be over so quickly is quite anti-climactic, but then you remember the feeling of satisfaction of having conquered a game and its ultimately a happy feeling.

Ethan was excited to see what new things he'd unlocked and then realized he could play through the game as a different character.

I think only gamers (or wives of gamers) can completely understand the excitement of events like these:) It was quite the event around here!

Guys like girls who.....

How would you answer this question? This was one of the first questions posed upon the teenagers at Revolve.

...but before I get to the answer, I'll tell you about getting there first!

First of all, this weekend was amazing. It was extremely fun and to my surprise not the least bit stressful. Well, I shouldn't say not at all...because standing in an arena with 10,000 teenage girls SCREAMING at the tops of their lungs was a bit stressful...but other than that it was great. Our girls were, thankfully, not obnoxious screamers, they had fun..but they were not acting at all like crazy teenyboppers.

We started out the morning at 7:30am on Friday. The kids watched me walk down to the church...it was sad for me:(

We met at the Church, loaded our stuff prayed with Papa and headed out on time as scheduled.

The trip down was absolutely uneventful..which was awesome. I had no trouble getting around in the 15 passenger van and along with Kirsten's amazing navigational skills (her GPS) we didn't have any trouble finding our way around. Besides always picking the EZPASS lanes at the toll booths we didn't have any trouble. (For the record..the signage for these stinking things is REALLY bad!)

After a couple of potty breaks and a lunch break we made it to Philly right on schedule. Connecticut is still in foliage season so it was beautiful to drive through. I wanted to stop to take pictures..but I didn't. It was hard...but I managed. We drove through NYC during a pretty time of day as well. We learned that you could probably pay this countries national debt with all the tolls in Jersey...and we had a lovely saranade of the theme song for The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air while driving into Philly. (You know how it goes..."in West Philadelphia born and raised...". Pretty much every girl in the van knew all the words and we had a good laugh about it).

We arrived at the Spectrum quite early actually...and found a nice parking spot in the lot at the Eagles Stadium (and here's me..wearing my Pats jacket. I thought sure we would come back to the van with no tires or something). We were able to walk around a bit and it was quite quiet. The sun was setting and it really was very pretty. We had a nice time stretching our legs after an 8 or so hour car ride before we headed into the Spectrum. (The girls had a great time making fun of me for my tree obsession...I will post those pics on the photoblog.)




The doors opened at 5:30 and were were the first in line to go in. We found our seats and enjoyed an empty stadium for a little while. We found out quickly that poor Jessey is deathly afraid of heights...she wanted a seatbelt:)


It didn't take long for the place to fill up and soon after the Tour officially started. It was pretty exciting. Friday night was pretty much an introduction to everyone that we would be listening to on Saturday. It was a good taste of what was to come in the morning. We headed back to our Suite in NJ after it was over..again, another wonderfully uneventful trip.


We were quite happy while checking into our place. Our suites were pretty sweet:) I don't think anyone had any trouble falling asleep...as we had plans for a fairly early wake up in the morning.
On Saturday morning we woke up to a nice little breakfast at the hotel..and then headed back to Philly for the day long conference.

The music was entertaining and the speakers were really really good. Basically it was a two part type of conference. One part was the issue of boys...pretty much the biggest issues for teenage girls, obviously. I liked how the speaker, Chad Eastham, broke it down. Long story short...he went through what it is like to be a teenage boy and what it is that boys are really into. Ultimately..it boiled down to "boys like girls who....are comfortable with themselves". Boys don't like girls who are over the top, who are trying to be something they are not...but boys like girls who are balanced in their lives. I tend to agree with this. Of course, there were many angles in which he went at this subject, but that was pretty much the overall idea of it.

Another one of the main speakers was Jenna Lucado (Max Lucado's daughter). She brought them into the more spiritual aspect of their lives and used an illustration of her with a ginormous chocolate heart....with a wrapper on. Again..this is the very basic idea..but she came to the story of herself standing there really really hungry holding onto this chocolate. Her friends think she's crazy..."why don't you just eat the chocolate?" they would ask. She related this idea to our relationship with God and how alot of time we have him there...but that there is some sort of wrapper getting between us and him..not allowing us to really 'dig in' and enjoy him. This wrapper being any number of the things that teenagers are dealing with on a daily basis.

There were many other testimonies of different experiences. I'm pretty sure that everyone of the teens was able to relate specifically to these different testimonies. The drama team was amazing..and had a great way of putting the two concepts together, using regular daily struggles and using different angles of bringing our spiritual lives into the picture.

Overall it was very well done. There were a few points that we tried to clarify with the girls later and we had good discussion about what we had heard during this time. Just like any girly gettogether..we had both laughter and tears and ultimately a great time.

After the conference on Saturday we headed to the King of Prussia Mall...pretty much the biggest mall I've ever been to. I don't know where it rates among the sizes of malls..but it has to be up there with one of the biggest. We were brave and let Melissa lead our way to get to the food court...

We were also brave and let the girls head out for a few hours with instructions to stay with atleast one other person..and to be back at a specific time. During that time one of my best friends who lives in Lancaster came to the mall to visit me. Megan had a baby 7 months ago and I got to meet her for the first time. We sat and visited the entire time and it was nice. Her husband is one of my most favorite drummers out there..he was the one to inspire me to finally do it myself. They both came and we had a great time visiting..and cuddling with baby Naomi!

The girls were amazing..and were all back 4 minutes before the time we told them..and then they had to wait for me while I did a little shopping at Old Navy:)

We headed back through Philly to NJ to our hotel. This was probably the most "eventful" part of our trip because we did manage to get a bit lost. The girls were WIRED from the day and were having fits of laughter in the back..which caused Kirsten and I to not hear what the GPS was telling us. We ended up somehow taking a wrong turn...but it was no big deal. A few trips around the Ghetto in Philly with the Church van (haha) and we were back on track:) Did I mention how much I love the GPS??!!

During this time...the girls in the back were wild and crazy. At one point Jessey (our quiet little Jessey) had actually crawled under the seats in the van to grab Lacy's feet. It really was hilarious...and of course pictures were taken. (and no..I didn't actually take the picture because I was driving!) ..and only Jessey would be able to get this good of a picture of herself while being squished under a row of van seats!

We headed back for some debriefing at the hotel...and pretty much went straight to bed. We woke up to another breakfast...a couple friendly games of knockout and we were off.

Another completely uneventful trip home (PTL) and we drove into the church as if we had just won the state championships. We handed over a bunch of wild and crazy girls to their parents...and headed home!

I can't wait to do it again next year!!!!

Fall is coming to and end.

I know that winter doesn't technically begin until December 21st (or somewhere around there)...but as we find ourselves deeper into November here in NH it tends to feel more and more like winter, rather than fall. Not only does it start feeling that way, but it starts looking that way as well.

What once was multicolored leaves on the trees slowly becomes a mixture of multicolored lives on the ground and on trees (which is beautiful as well)..and continues into pretty leaves on the ground with bare trees..and eventually becomes nothing but dead leaves all over the ground and mostly naked trees.

There are days like today when the weather doesn't quite match the scenery around us. It is a beautiful day. As I was taking pictures of the kids playing today it sort of felt like the calm before the storm. I got the shovel out so that I could carry the rotting pumpkins off of our porch and throw them in the woods..and then after made sure that I didn't put the shovel completely away because I know I will likely need it before the end of the month.

As I looked around, I was noticing all of the toys laying around that will get buried in snow if I don't get to them first.



As I was taking this picture all I could think about was how far up that post the snow would get this winter.



As I was outside trying to soak up the last of the nice weather, I was sort of mourning the loss of the summer but at the exact same time eager to move onto the next season of Thanksgiving and eventually Christmas. I was picturing our family all cozy inside decorating our Christmas tree while enjoying Christmas music and watching the snow fall outside.

This is why I live in New England. I embrace change. Change is what gets me through the monotony of everyday life. I like each new season as it arrives and am eager for the next season when the time is near.

Today is just one of those days I guess...as we bring close to one season and welcome the next. Until then, we will try to soak up whatever life is left of this fall season...



...and enjoy today!

I thought this was funny.

I have found that the kids enjoy it when I shoot them in continuous mode because they have fun looking at the string of pictures after. The D40 isn't the fastest continuous shutter out there (I think its something like 5 pics in 2.5 sec, maybe 4..I don't know)...but it is still pretty quick and tons of fun.

I thought this particular string was funny. Not only does Luke land on his head/neck..but its funny to watch how Owen is trying to "kick" him while he's down..with the shoe on his hand.

A new blog.

In trying to figure out everything that my new camera can do, I have found myself taking even MORE pictures than ever before. I figured that, instead of clogging up this blog with too many pictures, I would start a new one devoted to photography.

I plan to post the good, bad and the ugly over there...as I continue to learn how to get GREAT photos! (eventually!)

The link..
http://jelomomma.blogspot.com/

My new toy...

I finally have my birthday present in my hands! Josh and my mom (who pitched in towards it) bought me a new camera. After much deliberation and research..and friends suggestions, I finally decided to go with a Nikon D40. So far I have NOT been disappointed. There is quite a learning curve with this camera if you take it off of its auto functions...but I am determined to do that.

Over the weekend I have taken a TON of pictures..and only have a few that are worth sharing:)