Disability What?

Trent spoke at a middle school today for Disability Awareness Week. What the?? We sure didn't have those when we were growing up. We went to the middle school and watched as hundreds of kids poured into the gymnasium. Yikes! I was nervous for Trent. Nothin like trying to keep hundreds of middle schoolers entertained!

I have heard Trent speak in so many different settings. Baccalaureate's, church, youth groups, seminars, retirement centers, schools...you name it. He is such a fabulous speaker. I can honestly say that I never tire of hearing him speak, especially when he tells his story of how he broke his neck during a football game in high school. It is so amazing to me. As I sat there watching the students enthralled as Trent spoke (that in and of itself is nothing short of a miracle!), I could not help but feel grateful to be married to such an inspiring, wonderful guy. I wish I could have recorded the whole thing and put it on my blog, it was awesome.

One interesting point of his story that I love is when he tells of how he was laying on the field, in the rain, after the huge tackle that broke his neck, and he sees an arm by him, and he is thinking, "Get off me man"... and then he sees a cut on the finger, and realizes that it is his own arm that he is seeing, but can not feel it or associate it with his body at all. I can not imagine going through something like that. I could go on and on about how his friends and community rallied around him, his determination to work hard and succeed. His story is so inspiring. It sounds like a made for TV Hallmark movie. I wonder who they would get to play me? Jessica Simpson? Angelina Jolie? It would be hard to find someone as smokin hot as I am. And Humble. :)

P.S. on Monday, November 3, it will be 20 years since Trent broke his neck. He was 16.

An Apple a Day....

Today I did something domestic. My friend Robin and I made some applesauce. I KNOW! I am still impressed with myself. Ok.....so I was the master slicer and dicer, and Robin did everything else...but slicing apples for 3 1/2 hours has to be worth somethin eh? (Not sure how I am even typing this...is there such a thing as Arple Tunnel?) Here is the finished product. This is only half of it. I feel like a super woman. :)

Pumpkin Patch

It is once again time for our annual trip to the Pumpkin Patch. This is my favorite time of the year. It's just gorgeous here in the Northwest with all the leaves changing. I love the fresh apple cider and anything pumpkin...Yum! It was a gorgeous sunny day last Saturday, so we decided we better seize the day and head to the pumpkin patch...all decked out in our orange/black attire of course. We had a great time. We told Nathan that he could pick out any pumpkin he wanted. This is the one that he wanted:

Umm....any pumpkin you want except for the freakishly large ones. Let's settle for a picture on one instead.

Jonathan loves doing the "fishy face"

Taking some time to crawl through the hay maze tunnels.

Jonathan spent lots of time trying to push the wheelbarrow, only to get extremely frustrated when he couldn't accomplish the task. There is no reasoning with a 15 month old!

Here's all of us, Trent's parents included

Miss Environment

As you know, every now and then I get the urge to be environmentally friendly. I am visioning myself being Crowned "Miss Environment" (you gotta sing the Miss America song in your head while saying it to get the full effect...Here she comes....Miss En-viiiii-ronment....with my recycled sash, and my crown of egg carton rhinestones...its a beautiful thing) I had another one of those urges the other day as I was contemplating how to attack the hoards of weeds in my front yard. I swear that I have the friskiest weeds ever. They are multiplying at such a rapid rate. I usually just spray the whole lawn to kill all the weeds at once. This time though, I was contemplating the effect of all those chemicals on the environment (including the ones that I "accidentally" spray on my neighbors lawn) and how it probably isn't good for all the neighborhood kids to play and wrestle on.

With this thought in mind, I put Jonathan down for a nap. This is precious time when I am alone and should take a nap or something, but I decided that I would grab a spray bottle of weed killer and attack the weeds...one by one... I lovingly spent 45 minutes hunched over in my yard, being sure to spray the harsh chemical in the center of each weed. Once I was finished, my back was sore from hobbling around like an old lady, but my spirits were lifted as I felt so Eco-friendly. I had saved the neighborhood from toxins. I am wonderful! And then, not 15 minutes later...this happened:

Yep...a huge rainstorm came out of no where. You can rest assured that the next sunny day that comes along, I will have a different approach to my weed problem.

No more Miss Environment. Miss Ortho is coming to town.

I'm all Growed up

I have officially left my childhood and entered into adulthood. How did that happen? We had the "big talk" with Nathan. Yes. THE big talk. We borrowed a book from our friend titled, "How to talk to your child about sex". (very good book) In it they tell you to have a build up before the big talk, because it is a big, exciting, wonderful thing. We did that, and Nathan was really excited to hear what we had to tell him. Trent and I spent the night before going through the book and taking notes. We took it seriously man!

It was all fun and games until we asked Nathan to come and sit on the couch with us. He immediately had the "deer caught in the headlight" look. And then it dawned on him that this discussion was not going to have anything to do with Disneyland, or anything, "exciting and wonderful" in his opinion. Well...we did it, is about all I can say. We did our parental duty and tried to make it light hearted and upbeat. There was even a kids book they told us to have him read. It was hard for me to read, let alone listen to my 8 year old read it. And I have to say...that at one point I had the case of internal giggles! I was forcing myself NOT to giggle! Who is the adult here? I was chanting in my mind, "Do not giggle...do NOT giggle! Keep it together". It just struck me as so funny to hear Nathans voice reading about such adult things. And then they even had drawn pictures of the man and the woman naked so you could see what we were talking about. Nathan was NOT impressed. He was so "thrilled" when we told him that we would have future discussions to talk about other changes that would be going on in his body...yadda yadda.

Phew...we made it through it. I was a little nervous. It is funny that I have no problem using all anatomically correct words, and talking about pretty much anything and everything. Yet, having to do this little chat was nerve wracking. I am glad that we did it though. I remember how I learned about all of this stuff. My friend Rickelle explained it all to me while we were jumping on the trampoline one day. I was Nathans age, and I was totally disgusted and told her that my parents would NEVER do something like that. She then informed me that they had already done it 5 times already, because we had 5 kids in the family. I was not happy. These things were never talked about in my family, so I knew the importance of being the first one to talk to my son. Only one more "big talk" to go. Good thing we only have two kids. Parenting ain't for sissies that is for sure.

Troubled Waters

Just wanted to share a little something I just experienced. Picture this. Pitch black. Just got the sick baby back down to sleep. I walk into the bathroom to sit on the throne. Within a few seconds, I realize that my socks (you know how I hate wearing socks, but wear them I must, in case of the huge old hairy spiders. What am I talking about might you ask? Read here if you need a refresher) are progressively getting wetter and wetter. Huh...this can't be good. I jump up off the pot and flick on the light in one fluid Chuck Norris type movement.

After the blindness wears off, I look down on the floor, it is covered in a clearish/brownish type liquid. Oh. My. Word!!!! By this time the bottom of my pajama pants are wet and my socks are soaking wet! I vaguely remembering hearing the toilet make a weird gurgle type splash sound after I used it before I crawled into bed. However, I was reading a book I just got from the library and did not want to peel myself away from it and get up to check it out (Thanks alot Josi! It is your book ,so technically it is your fault? heh heh) I quickly strip the e-coli infested pajama bottoms and socks. And so the midnight cleaning of overflowing crap begins.

As I was bathing Jonathan tonight, I was looking at the bathroom floor and thinking that it could use a good scrubbin. OH boy... it sure received a good scrubbin tonight! (Isn't the saying "Be careful what you "wish" for?....not... "Be careful what you "think" about?) I am happy to report that my bathroom floor is now clean enough to eat off of. Really...come on over. We'll have a picnic on the floor. :) There is nothin quite like the smell of Clorox to ease my mind, and lull me back to sleep.

Cub Scout Treasures

Nathan really enjoys cub scouts. They do a lot of fun/random things. Bless those leaders! I can't imagine trying to keep ten 8 year old boys engaged for an hour once a week. Yikes! Nathan brought home a project that they lovingly made for us. One that you see it and you are saying..."Wow...that is really...."neat" son....." and then the process begins of trying to find that one "special" place to display this creation. How about here?

Not quite right....(yes that is a mold of his foot, painted like the Italian Flag!! exclamations for how excited he is about that color scheme)

Hmmmm...Not feelin the love here

A little bit better...still not quite right

We're getting "warmer"

Ahhh...Just right. The heavens parted, angels singing....just perfect. Right on top of Nathans dresser so he can look at it every day. The universe is in balance once again.....until the next Cub Scout Treasure comes home.

Let the Fall Season Begin!

I decided it was time to pull out the decorations for the Fall season. (Notice the new blog header? Thanks Arlyn!)


Here are my holiday decorations.
Before:


So many decisions to make...should I put the candles this way




or this way:



Tough decisions.....


Before:



After:



And this year I went the extra mile and added another special touch.



All Done! Phew....that was some serious work! I better go and take a nap. :)


P.S...Nathan came home and said right off, "What's up with the orange candles?" Jonathan woke up from his nap and walked right over to the candles and kept pointing. And then Trent came home and noticed the orange candles too. I told him that I was seriously impressed the he noticed them so quickly. He said, "Honey, our house is not that big, there are not many places to look." Too true!

Stop and Smell the Cucumbers

Nathan informed me today that he would like to start using conditioner on his hair. He wants to start using mine, but I told him that I would go buy some conditioner that would be "just for him". (I am a shampoo and conditioner snob...) I was in Fred Meyer today choosing a conditioner for Nathan. In order to pick out the very best one of the 99 cent Suave, I had to do my sniff test. I smell everything before I buy, soaps, deodorants, detergents, shampoo's....etc. With these sorts of products, you have to squeeze the bottle a couple of times....gently... so you can get a whiff. I had the Suave Cucumber and Melon conditioner in my hand...I did my patented squeeze and sniff...when all of a sudden...the bottle made some sort of fart noise and shot conditioner right up my nose. It scared me, so at the same time I sniffed as it shot out, so not only did it go clear up my nose, some of it went down my throat. That was a new experience. I have never actually tasted conditioner before.

Huh...now what? (as conditioner is literally dripping out of my nose)....good thing I packed a spare outfit for Jonathan in the diaper bag. I grabbed that and started wiping out my nose....and blowing...and picking....I got a couple of weird looks as people passed by. I didn't think anything of it until I got home. I am sure they were thinking..."Get a tissue for cryin out loud!"...I really looked like I was diggin for gold today. I just gave them the head nod as I had my finger wrapped in the outfit and shoved up my nose. Perfectly normal.

On the positive side, after I got it all cleaned up, with each breath I took, I was smelling cucumber and melon all day today. Maybe I have stumbled across something? It was actually kind of pleasant....Who knew? Just tryin to look on the bright side. :)