Love and chocolate

After a chilly, windy afternoon outside, the kids enjoyed their hot chocolate.

Jack is looking depressed because he's upset that his "hot cocoa" was hot. It wasn't actually hot, the other two drank theirs right away with no problems, but he was convinced it was going to burn him, so he pouted. It's been one of those days. Like my mama used to recite about me, "There was a little girl, who had a little curl, right in the middle of her forehead. When she was good, she was very good indeed, but when she was bad she was horrid." Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (really, I thought it was Mother Goose!) must've been trying to disguise that it was about Jack, with the girl part, and the curl part...the rest of it is definitely him!

And then, being the glutton for punishment that I am, I decided it would be a good time to try to take Valentine's pictures. In my defense, they were in a chocolate-induced stupor, so I thought they might be far enough gone that they'd go along with pictures.

As you can see, Jack started out pouting, but he recovered. I considered trying to get the Sup.erman cape off him, but it was NOT worth the fight, so I left it alone.

Then all I could get out of him was this fake, goofy smile. He does this a lot lately. He also started a fake laugh as of yesterday. He does it after everything he says, whether it was intended to be funny or not. That Jack!

I love my little goofballs!

The Smoochies

I think Madeline started the name "smoochie", or maybe it was Jared describing her when she was little (he probably remembers). However it happened, it has become one of our family terms of endearment...it can be used as a nickname "hey, smoochie" or, more commonly, to refer to actions deemed "smoochie", as in "quit being a smoochie" or "that's so smoochie". It may have evolved from "tookie", which Madeline did make up herself when she was 2. Then there is also "poochie", which refers to when one of the kids (originally and commonly Madeline, but now also Jack more and more) pooches their lips out in a huff because they're disappointed or mad about something...as in, "Don't be poochie" or "Aww, poor poochie". Probably a behavior we should not encourage by giving it it's own name, but somehow it's cute at 2 (with the first child) and then becomes less and less cute as they get older. So, I'm not exactly sure what "smoochie" means...you just sort of know when it's the right time to use it. It's similar to "poochie", but a more general description of something or someone that has elements of brattiness, but also cuteness or silliness. I guess it's kind of like "you little stinker", said with love and affection, not ever in anger. Because it's such a cute, funny word to us, it's often used to diffuse a situation when someone (usually Madeline, because she's the over-reacter) is getting worked up about something silly, or if I've reacted (ok, over-reacted) too strongly to something childish one of the kids has done. Using "smoochie" just automatically reminds us that we are crazy about each other, even when we aren't crazy about each other's actions sometimes. I love my smoochies! I'm sure you all have silly/funny words or names like smoochie that you use in your family. We had tons in mine, which I guess is why I love them so much! I'd love to hear some of yours :-) Don't feel like you have to be as wordy as me, but if you are, I love reading every word of it!

Smoochie Jack building his spider, which, for the record, is NOT scary

I checked on Madeline before going to bed and she was snuggled with her Valentines bear from Memaw, which is the same little beanie baby Jared got me in the hospital when Ruby died. That bear is officially called "Ruby Bear" (J got it because it was pink and girly, and also just about the size of our little Rube) and stays usually on my dresser with Ruby's blankie, unless Noah decides to sleep with it. Anyway, she brought it home from Memaw's so proud that she had her own "Ruby bear" and this is how I found her... Speaking of Ruby, here is her little corner. Our class at church gave us the plaque that has Lamentations 3:22-23 "His compassions never fail, they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness". The Wil.low Tree figurines are from different people, before, during and after losing Ruby. The dried flowers are the 4 roses from the graveside service, one for each child, including Ruby, and the other flowers are from an arrangement I got on her first birthday. The frames are some J & I got soon after her service and had on the wall in the dining room. At that time, Noah was big into counting the members of our family, especially at mealtime, and called us "the pizza" (we have a round/oval table), as in "we're missing a piece of the pizza" if Jared was still at work and we were eating, or if Jack was already in bed (back when he fell asleep at 6 pm and slept til 7 am!!). When I was pregnant with Ruby, he would usually include her as a piece of the pizza as long as I was sitting at the table. So when she died, he naturally commented almost nightly that we were missing a piece of the pizza. We put the pictures up in the dining room because (a) there was an empty space on the wall, (b) it was a noticeable place, not "in your face" if a guest wasn't particularly comfortable looking, but not hidden so that people had to go over into a corner and make a big deal out of looking if they wanted to, and (c) so that Ruby could always be a piece of the pizza. They're not back up on the wall yet after painting, but they are in the dining room still, and visible from the table where we share our meals. I think it's a perfect place to remember our little Ruby-Rue, the place where our family gathers to break bread together, to recount and remember our blessings, to be thankful for each and every piece of our pizza.

Woo-hoo! My "new" kitchen!

dFor my own sanity, this post will be (parentheses-free). I read some past posts recently and nearly drove myself crazy with all of the (parentheses) I use. So just this once, I will force myself to refrain. Sometimes I just really annoy myself!


So, we've been in this house 2 1/2 years and are just now doing ANYTHING to it, but we're on a roll! Which I'm sure will end, oh, I don't know, sometime around the end of May, when Babycare 501 begins. So with Maddy's pink room and the living area painted, what more could I ask for? Let me remind you...
Sadly, that was in JULY and here we are in FEBRUARY...

Yep, same ol' painted, nasty-looking floor. Okay, it probably IS actually nasty, and not just nasty-looking. Plus, I was really tempted to put that in parentheses. But still, the paint. SOOOOO...since we couldn't decide on exactly what to do "permanently", blah, blah, blah...insert long-winded account of our boring and drawn-out indecisive decision-making process...here is the current final result...



Jared, at my request, took the kids to his parents' house for a long-overdue visit Saturday night through Sunday evening. They were able to celebrate Uncle Dick's 91st birthday with him on Sunday. Jack especially liked the part where he blew out Uncle Dick's candles, even though Jared had warned him not to. I know this because when they walked in the door Sunday afternoon, Jack said, "It's not my birday, I cannot bwo out Uncle Dick's candles. My birday is 'tober thirty. It's not 'tober thirty yet. Then I can bwo out my candles." Let me just say, I was more impressed that he remembered his birthdate than I was upset over him blowing out the 91-year-old's candles. I'm betting Uncle Dick did NOT care. Although everyone else planning to actually EAT the cake might have a different opinion.

And how, you might wonder, does that relate to the kitchen floor? While they were gone, I "tiled" the kitchen floor! Yes, I'm 23 weeks pregnant. So sue me, I needed a project. I'm nesting a little early. The floor is 18" vinyl stick-on tiles from L.owe's (like Sarah K!). I had brought home 10+ different tiles to try out and the lighter ones, which seemed more practical in not making our small kitchen look any smaller, just didn't look right with the orange shellacked knotty pine cabinets. As if anything looks good with orange shellacked knotty pine cabinets. But I took a gamble...Jared did not share my vision...that these darker tiles, with the orangey-greeny tones, would work. For under $100 and probably 8 hours of my time...because I'm really slow...I...I mean we...have a new kitchen floor! I really like it, and Jared actually does, too. He still doesn't love the aloe-colored walls...and honestly, neither do I, but I think it all looks better at least. Although it would be hard NOT to improve on the "painted" linoleum!

These are the curtains...I just typed kirtins...seriously...although in my defense I was simultaneously--I can spell that--carrying on a conversation with Noah about Fat Tuesday and why we do NOT have to take the red velvet cake that Memaw gave me for Valentine's Day--THANK YOU, MEMAW!--to Maddy's Brownie meeting because they are going to have a king cake there, and that Maddy promises she will tell him after the meeting if she gets the piece with the baby...so, I guess I just went on autopilot.

Ok, seriously back to the kitchen. These are the curtains that I "made". I intended to actually sew them on Monday, but realized AFTER retrieving my sewing machine from the attic, that I had NO thread. I guess I took my sewing box to my parents' house and left it there. Oops! It didn't help that Jack was napping and I only had 5 hours until 11 friends came to my house for Bunko night! Oh yeah, and I needed to finish cooking, finish cleaning, un-grocery-sack the windows, etc. So, I decided to do the next-best, quickest thing...staple! You can tell in-person, but not too shabby in the picture. Except that I didn't bother to measure. I had already cut the fabric, but I just eye-balled the hems, "seam"-allowances, etc. I hope to go back soon and actually sew them, but I'm not making any promises. If you look at the "before" picture of the kitchen, you'll see the curtain was 3 cloth napkins from Ta.rget that I stapled to the inside of the existing wood cornice-thingy. I don't have a great track-record with these things. If it ain't broke, don't fix it, I say.

The rest of these pictures, and really most of this post, are mostly for mom, who is probably the only one interested at this point. This is a little plaque...isn't that the stuff on your teeth? is it spelled the same?...I found at R.oss for $10 that convinced me that I COULD pull off the aloe and red color scheme with black iron accents. I already had the aloe walls, and black hinges/cabinet pulls, so I was pretty much stuck with that. Anyway, I like it and I really like it in this empty space under the cabinet. It used to be over the refrigerator. It looks mighty-nice with the curtains, I think. And my red-velvet valentine cake coordinates, too! And I feel like I should confess that, since I had 11 people over for Bunko/dinner last night, I have NOT finished all the dishes, so I had to move piles of dirty dishes from one end of the counter to the other to achieve full-coverage of the kitchen :) Just so you didn't think I have it all together. I know, don't laugh, no one really thought that anyway!!Now, if we can just do something about those countertops! I think I need a V-8 smack with a verse about being content. Thunk! And I made it with no parentheses! The next baby-step will be weaning myself from ... and --. Don't hold your breath.

And if you made it to the end of yet another long-winded post, please know that I appreciate any and all comments, even from the more mature ladies ;-) That's you, M.E.!