Knock, knock . . .

Who's there? Asher's new favorite thing is to tell his very on knock, knock joke. He made it up and he always tells it the same way:

Asher: Knock, knock.
Mommy: Who's there?
Asher: A
Mommy: A who?
Asher: *big pause* A
Lots and lots of giggles insue.
I am sure he is thinking "I just said it was A - don't you get it?"

He and Hannah were have a joke-fest on the way to preschool today. It was pretty hilarious! Hannah's jokes make no sense whatsoever but we laugh at them anyway. I just tell the same 2 over and over and get a laugh every time! Guess I need some new material. Anybody got any good knock, knock jokes?

Loved this review

So I really loved this review of Twilight from a guy on GoodReads:

James McQuivey's review


It turns out we don't need Dr. John Gray to tell us that men are from Transylvania and women are from Venus. We just need to read Stephenie Meyer books. For example, from this book we learn that the millions of women who have wolfed down the Twilight series (pun intended) want men who:

1. Talk about their feelings. Either Meyer's husband is the single-most communicative male on the planet and she doesn't realize how unusual he is, or she, like most of her female readers, is using her fiction to imagine a world where men not only have deep emotions but want to admit to having them and talk about them over and over, articulating even the most subtle of their internal dramas.

2. Make them flutter. But just being a sensitive new-age kind of guy doesn't cut it. A man has to be hard-bodied, chiseled, dashing, and have eyes that pierce the soul, if not the skin (even as they never look at your chest). This book suggests that a real man makes you constantly stumble over your words, bite your lip to refrain from exclaiming adulations, and lose yourself in the sweet smell of his breath.

3. Are fiercely devoted. That a girl of no spectacular beauty, who lacks any trace of conversation skills -- whose only virtue is that she smells really yummy -- can inspire an immortal creature of godlike power and grace to alter his entire existence to serve and protect her, watching over her by night (more on that in #4). This is a woman's ultimate fantasy -- to have the perfect man, perfectly devoted, for no good reason at all.

4. Want them so bad that they won't take them. This, alas, is the most transparent aspect of this book's appeal. It speaks volumes about the differences between men and women to have so many women toss their bodice-ripping romances aside in order to read how a feral man with otherworldly physical desires can contain his passion and lust out of his pure and perfect love for his beloved. It says that women really do wish they could have it both ways, to be an object of lust and devotion at once, to fulfill a man's desire without actually slaking his thirst for her. To have a man watch you sleep and not want to have even a little peek under the covers -- now that's hot fantasy for today's woman who is otherwise told on a regular basis that to be her best self she has to enage in casual and risky sexual behavior.

To see just what an indulgent fantasy this book is, just imagine the male-centric version of Twilight, in which a troubled teen boy moves to a small town to find the hottest girl in town is a vampiress. Such a book would be about 100 pages long (all the unnecessary internal dialogue would be removed). No one would talk except to comment on the awesome size of, um, one's videogame library. The vampiress would be simple: relatively dumb, incredibly hot, wearing almost nothing, and with no expectations of her man but drawn to him only by the smell of his gym bag. She wouldn't hold herself back from trying to bite her intended, but would get so distracted with his bedroom technique that she would never get around to it.

We would laugh at such a book (in fact, we know it would never be a book since men don't read; it would be a movie, and it would be a smash summer hit called American Vam-Pie-er, I'll start the screenplay right away). Somehow, when this story is told in a similarly indulgent female-centric vein, we don't reject it, but sympathize with it. I believe this is because women get to indulge in their fantasies so rarely outside of Jane Austen novels while men are surrounded with theirs. So far I have yet see spam email inviting one to "read hot things devoted husbands would say to their wives" or "see pictures of hunks promising not to get nasty out of respect for their women" or "buy this purple pill so you can stay up late and share your feelings -- seven times in one night!." So hats off to Stephenie Meyer for figuring out what it is that women really want and giving it to them.

Book Review

Once Upon a Marigold by Jean Ferris

My review

rating: 4 of 5 stars
This was a delightful read. If you are in the mood for a funny, upbeat, doesn't-take-itself-too-seriously kind of book this would be a great choice. Told from the point of view of a guy who falls for a princess from afar, this book put a new spin on the typical Cinderella fairy tale. I highly recommend this book for those who have read and liked Gail Carson Levine's books like Ella Enchanted and Fairest. Maybe not quite as well developed as the previously mentioned books but still fun. Great for those who still believe in happily ever after!


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Hannah's Big Day

She couldn't wait. She's been asking for days and days. It is finally here. The wait is over. Hannah headed off to preschool today in her new school. This time around she is in a real elementary school and she feels like such a big kid. She picked out her own clothes and told me how she wanted her hair done. She put on her new school shoes and her new back pack. Of course this was all early in the morning and her school isn't 'til after lunch. I walked her into class early and asked her if she wanted me to stay a while. She replied, "Oh Momma, you choose." So I hugged her goodbye and headed out the door. I can't believe my baby girl is growing up so fast. I am thrilled for her to use this opportunity to make new friends and be her own person away from JJ. I think that is really important for her development right now. So it is really quiet at our house right now. Asher naps in the afternoon and so I plan to get some good scrapbooking time in. But that doesn't mean I don't miss my two big kids. Ok, so I don't miss JJ that much (that sounds bad I know). But he is MUCH happier having a structured schedule and learning new things. If we could just get him to figure out how to behave on the playground. It's only the second week of school and he has already had problems on during lunch and recess time almost every day. He has always been my "Jekyll and Hyde" kid. In class he does great- his teacher has absolutely no complaints. As long as he is in a structured environment with things to occupy his mind he can stay on task and excel. But when he is put into the chaos of recess and lunch with tons of other kids his personal control falls apart. He doesn't purposely hurt other kids or verbally fight with them - things just get out of hand and he doesn't know when to stop. He is aware of the consequences of his actions and he knows right from wrong. He just can't seem to see past his impulses to stop himself from going too far. I become panic stricken if I think too much about it. I am trying to remind myself that he is just a first grader and that this is only the first two weeks. I guess I expect him to listen to what Lance and I say and immediately be able to put it into practice. I am learning that consistent reinforcement is the only thing that we can do right now. While my mind and emotions have been wrapped up in my own life. I was able to receive promptings from the spirit yesterday to go and visit my mom. I didn't know why but I just felt we should go there in the morning. We had a good time and were getting ready to leave around noon when Mom discovered that her basement was flooding again. The water heater that had nearly destroyed her basement a few years ago was at it again. Luckily we noticed it before it got out into the hallway or much past the fruit room door. I started trying to call Lance and whoever I could think of who might be able to come and help us. I got the main house water turned off and then the doorbell rang. I ran upstairs to see who it was and it was my mom's neighbor bringing by some tomatoes from his garden. I quickly told him what was happening and he got another neighbor's shop vac to start sucking out the water. I used my mom's carpet cleaner to start sucking out the water on the carpet. The cleaner would fill up in about 30 seconds and I would dump it and start again. Lance showed up and took that job over. Jake came and helped the neighbor get empty the hot water tank. All I can say is that it could have been MUCH worse then it was (especially if it had happened last weekend or next weekend). I really feel that the spirit guided not only me to be there but also mom's neighbor. We are grateful to everyone who helped out. Mom got a plumber in this morning who replaced her water heater so everything seems to be fixed - other than it being a little damp downstairs still. More evidence of the Lord's hand in our daily lives!

It's just that . . .

Ok so anyone who spends much time with Hannah knows that she starts almost every sentence with "It's just that . . .". For example,
"Momma?"
"Yes, Hannah?"
"It's just that . . . (long pause) I really want to go to Grandma's today." OR
"JJ! It's just that . . . I want to play super heroes with you!"

So you may wonder what the point of this blog entry is.
"It's just that . . . I am so grateful we have our little 'Pink Stuff'!"

Another Layout

Here is the second part of that two page layout.

Latest Layout

So I am trying out Photoshop Elements because our other hard drive "failed" *sad sigh*. This layout took me twice as long as my old photoshop but it has some fun new tools. Here's hoping that "Super Vance" can come to the rescue and get our other drive working again. I would love to hear any CC or comments!

Funny for parents

So I saw this, and just had to post it.

If you click on the image, it will made it larger and easier to read.

For those of you who are parents, you will recognize the symptoms ...

1st Day of School

The beginning of this new school year came with mixed feelings for me. I am excited to get back into some sort of routine and not have to try and find things for JJ to do so that he doesn't sit in front of the TV all day. I am excited for him to make new friends and to continue his education. I am excited for Hannah to try a new preschool, make new friends and find her own independance away from JJ. I am scared to death because I have to relinquish more and more control over JJ. I am afraid that he won't make good choices or that I won't be there to protect him from the millions of dangers big and small that exist when he is away from me. There are so many more influences on him now and I agonize of whether he will be able to see right from wrong. On Tuesday I walked him to school- much to the chagrin of some neighbor kids who were walking too. As I stood waiting for the school doors to open, a sea of kids swirled around me and I felt a little like I was walking back in time and seeing my self in some of the kids around me. I must say I felt a little sick. My elementary school years are not filled with very many good memories. I am trying to remind myself that JJ is VERY different from me and that he is prepared to handle so many aspects of school life better than I ever was. I am really happy with the teacher he got this year. She seems to have just the right personality for him. So now I take a deep breath and dive in to what I hope will be another happy, growth filled school year. I am hoping that I will be able to recognize the lessons I am being sent so I can grow as a parent.

Breaking Dawn Review

Breaking Dawn by Stephenie Meyer

My review

rating: 3 of 5 stars
Another fun read from Stephanie Meyer. Although none of the books quite compare to the 1st novel for me - I enjoyed reading them all, including this one. I felt that it would have been a tighter more fast paced novel had it been edited down about 100 pages. There were times when I got bored with it and had to put it down. That said I found the story line intriguing and well thought out. The majority of things I didn't like about it are certainly based on my own tastes not on the quality of the story itself. The same is probably true of the things I did enjoy about it. I really liked the ending. It was very satisfying for me - it really seemed to sew up all the loose ends. I can leave Bella, Edward and Jacob feeling that they will continue to live on without me having to fantasize about what might happen next for them.


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Last Hurrah before School -- Strawberry Reservoir

Well, you have probably noticed Sara has dropped out of cyber-space. She filled the 160 gig harddrive with digital scrapbooking materials (okay, maybe the 10 megapixel camera helped with that), but I was trying to install a new larger drive and it all went south (older version of Windows XP couldn't handle anything over 130 gig). Anyway, so I am currently trying to bring it up, but meanwhile Sara doesn't get much computer time (except when she can steal my lap top, and right now she is too engrossed in "Breaking Dawn" to care much).

But I thought I would give a fast update on this weekend. We made a fun trip out to Strawberry Reservoir on Saturday. My mom and dad went with us, and we made a daytrip of it. First stopped at the nature center, talking with the rangers and finding a good place to fish. We also did the short little “nature” walk along the board walk, where we had our first and only incident. Asher was running (as he is prone to do), tripped and fell on the boardwalk and got a hung cut and splinter on his hand. The splinter was over a quarter of an inch long, and the cut about 2 inches … when you consider his palm is only about 3 inches, it was pretty big. But he really didn’t cry much until we started to try and get the splinter out. We got most of it, but had to wait until we got home later to get the rest (borrowed tweezers from the rangers, but nobody had a pin!)


We did find a pretty nice place to fish … kind of on a point (Haws Point, to be precise). No shade (where is there any on Strawberry?). Fishing wasn't great … well, except for the crawdads (if that is spelled right). Caught a bunch of those. They like worms (and the dead fish on the shore line that we found when we got there .. and then my dad decided to clean, take home and presumably eat. Maybe Mom talked him out of it … although I doubt it).

But as they say ... the worst day of fishing is better than the best day of cleaning the house.

Kids had a fun time just doing what kids do. They played in the dirt and mud. Course, we remembered a change of clothes for them, but not alternate shoes. Oh well.

We had taken sandwiches for lunch, but for dinner we drove around to find a picnic area with a table. Not much luck there ... another ranger felt sorry for us (and apologetic for the condition of the few tables located outside of the campgrounds) and let us use a campground site to cook out dinner. We ran out of propane part way through (oops), but wasn’t too bad.

All and all, a really nice day. Weather was wonderful, kids had a good time. Great “last weekend before school starts” type of thing.

New Review - The Host

rating: 4 out of 5

Okay, Sara keeps doing this, so I thought I would throw a review on. Sara got me "The Host" by Stephenie Meyer for Christmas, and I am just now getting around to reading it. In the onset, I can say that I did read Twilight, but not any of Meyer's other books. I admit to being a lukewarm fan ... Twilight was kind of weak, even juvenile for me. In fairness, it is a "young adult" book, but I got a little tired of the weak, almost whiney teenage girl (yes, several of Sara's girlfriends will now officially hate me ... guy's perspective here).

With that, I was a little reluctant to start Host, but had heard it was written for adults (not crude or anything, just higher on the readability scale and a bit less soft and squishy). So when I finished C.S. Lewis' Narina series, I dove in (that is another, arguably, "Young Adult" series, but it doesn't use that as an excuse).

Wow - the editorializing in this is really distracting ....

Anyway -- The Host. While it will never make it to my top 10 (or even top 100), it was a good read. Simple premise is that symbiont aliens invade and take over Earth, with a few holdout pockets of real "humans" left. (For non-sci-fi geeks, symbiont aliens mean they are a second life form that only survives by bonding to a first life form. In this case, a "worm" that attaches itself to the human spinal cord and brain, thereby taking over control of the human and burying the host body's control and personality). The heroine in the story is a symbiont that can't quite make her host's personality "go away." In desperation, she makes a driving trip across the desert, literally tripping over some clues her "host" was told about by a reclusive uncle. She finds this pocket of human holdouts (including her little brother and her boy friend), but she has to win their loyalty and acceptance.

As I say, not the best in the world, but it is a long book and I wasn't bored with it. Meyers writing has definitely improved since Twilight (in my humble opinion), and the characters are pretty engaging. If you like Meyer's other books, you will probably like this one as well.

New Review

Farewell Summer: A Novel by Ray Bradbury

My review

rating: 2 of 5 stars
I was pretty disappointed by this book - Dandelion Wine is one of my all time favorite books and so I was hoping this sequel would at least be on par with it. But alas no such luck. There are moments of where the prose is so flowery that I couldn't figure out what the author was trying to say. The characters no longer seemed real and relatable but what really broke the camel's back for me was the last few pages. No spoilers here just disappointment. That said I guess I have to give it two stars for the simple fact that it exists- I am glad that Ray Bradbury created a sequel to Dandelion Wine- this just didn't measure up to it.


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Itty Bitty Soccer and Asher's turns 2

Here we are at the end of another full week. Hannah started Itty Bitty Soccer this week. She is loving it so far. She already has most of the concepts down due to playing with JJ and learning from him. She is such a happy outgoing girl that she didn't have any anxiety about starting something new and meeting new people. Her only issue comes when someone "steals" the ball from her- she still hasn't learned that that is part of the game and that she can run faster and steal it right back for her team. I like to encourage her to do more physical and athletic things because she has a tendancy to just want to watch tv or sit and play with her toys. I want her to get exercise so this and dance have been great for her. JJ got to with his Madigan Grandparents as well as his cousin and uncle for a day of hiking around Payson Lakes. He had a great time and really love swimming in the lake. Thankfully no leeches got a hold of him! JJ has really enjoyed spending Mondays with Grandpa Madigan fishing at various lakes close by. No fish have been harmed as yet, happily or sadly depending on your opinion of fishing. LOL!

We have new washer. No, we didn't really want one (especially since we had already spent over a $100 to fix the old one) unfortunatly it was that or spend another $400 to fix the old one. Here's hoping that this one lasts a little longer than the old one did (only 6 years!)

Friday was Asher's 2nd birthday and we had a little party at the park for him. It was great to have a few friends and family come and just enjoy some good old fashioned BBQ. The kids played with outdoor toys and we did the obligitory birthday stuff. I have to say a big thank you to Holly for taking most of the picture with my camera. She did a great job. Thanks also to Jake, Carolyn and Mom for helping out in various ways with the party.