Justice's Latest Hijinks

I swear, I should just rename my blog The Justice Story or something like that. What am I going to do with this kid? I was in the other room feeding the baby, and Justice was in the kitchen throwing a big bowl full of blackberries all over the place. This may be his worst mess ever. Luckily the only things that it stained were things that I was going to paint anyway.

The other day, Justice came up to me and handed me a steak knife saying something about "in the basement." I figured that one of the other kids had left a steak knife in the basement, and he was returning it to me. (We keep the steak knives on top of the fridge, and since the dishwasher is now installed, rather than on rollers like it used to be, he can't reach the top of the fridge.) A while later, I went into the basement to find that Justice had poked about a million holes in our downstairs couch with the steak knife. They are all over the thing. There must be at least 100 holes. That's scary, a two year old with a steak knife. *Shudder*

On a lighter note, Bruce gave all of the children father's blessings the night before they started school again. Justice was apparently impressed with this, because he has since been going around pretending to give Clayton and himself blessings. That reminds me of a story:

My dad says that his sisters used to play baptism with their dolls. They would dig a hole in the yard, fill it up with water and say "...in the name of the Father, the Son, and in the hole you go!" as they threw their dolls into to muddy water.

Ahh, Back to School, Back to Structure

I can't believe it's here already. By the end of a school year, I totally ready, and in dire need of a break from school, homework, etc. By the end of the summer, I am ready, and in dire need of the structure of it all back. By now, my summer resolutions have all fallen to crap, (having a baby, and remodeling the kitchen had a hand in that) and I like the new start.

Structure is good. It's good to have the work that school is to do. Good to have everybody up, groomed, dressed and fed by 7:30. (I'm listening to Liszt on my play list right now. Totally dig it! Sorry if my play list annoys anybody out there, but I like it. And if anyone is curious about my crush, Michael Ball - he's on here - Empty Chairs. Give him a listen.) ANYWAY (It just switched to White and Nerdy, what a contrast!) ANYWAY ...

I got up at 5:00, fed the baby, went running, showered, got the kids going on getting ready for school and doing their pre-school chores -love it-, made breakfast, packed lunches, took the boys (including Dax and Blaine, my before and after school extras) to school. Bruce took Lydia to her school. Now I just need to pry my bottom off of this chair and get some work done. I'm going to call my piano teacher and tell him that I'm ready to come back for lessons again. I just need to figure out what to do with my children while I'm there.

I love structure. Back to cooking dinner at 10:30 am (actually cooking real meals). Love my crock-pot, love cooking breakfast. What a weirdo. I just love having things to do that make me feel like I'm accomplishing things. By May, I'll hate it again, and I'll need a big break. Really, I'll be ready by Christmas break, or Thanksgiving. But today, I'm loving it.

So Freaking Busy!!!

Dratted kitchen! I made a boo-boo that is costing me quite the headache! I let the grout dry on the back-splash before I tried to clean it out. DON'T DO THAT!!!!!! What a nightmare!

I ran for the first time in months today! Yay! It wasn't pretty, but I didn't expect it to be. I'll get it back eventually.

Kids go back to school next week. Another year of Blaine and Dax. Don't know whether to celebrate or to cry. I really need the money, but dang! DANG!! If only I didn't need the money so bad. There is no WAY!

I seriously need a day away from the kitchen to go and play with the kids. I didn't end up doing it the other day. What did I do instead? I don't even remember. I suck.

I Have The Socks of Justice!

A Day Off From The Kitchen?!

Well, the kitchen project is coming along. We've got new sub-walls (so we could add insulation), new cabinets, a new tile back splash, and a new tile floor. We still have to clean the grout out of the back splash, seal that, put up new dry-wall on the ceiling plus mud, tape, sand, and paint that. We still have to paint the walls, and trim, put in a new basement door, and I'm planning to paint my ceiling fan. See here to see the ceiling fan I did in the living room last year. I liked that one way much. Is that all? I don't know. But we just put the last coat of sealer on the floor this morning. So, gosh darn-it! I can't go in the kitchen today. So sad! (Much sarcasm here.) So, here I am, dorking around on the computer. I'm jamming to my new play list here on the blog. Sorry if it annoys you all. I think I'll go and play today.

Hey, one week till I get to run, bike, and lift weights! Hooray!!!!!! Cain't wait. No triathlon for me this year. It's this Saturday. But, I do have a few races in my future. I'll have to hit the ground running literally asap!

Oh, and Trent's Birthday is coming up again. It's my tradition to torture my great little brother each year on his b-day. We've got something special planned for his 18th birthday. I'd better not say too much here just yet, in the off chance that he might see it. Just trust me, this one (if we can pull it off) will blow the others out of the water. He He He!!! I can't wait! John, Liz, you'd better plan on being there. It will be worth it. ((((SSSSSSHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!))))

Okay, I've got to do some real things now. Bye!

Elevator Fun

I've got about 500 million things to blog about, but not too much time. However, I have to pass this one along. Today I took my four boys with me to the dr.'s office so they could draw some of my blood for a thyroid test. When we got into the elevator, they enlightened me to a new, fun game. As soon as the elevator doors slid shut, Ross and Mark immediately started screaming and rolling around on the elevator floor. As there was no one else in the thing with us, I started cracking up. It was great fun. They did a repeat performance on the way back to the van. Ross told me that they had done this in the hospital elevators on the way to my room a few weeks ago. When we got back to my parents house later, I told my mom about this fun activity. I was under the assumption that this was inspired by my brother, Trent. However, to my surprise, my mom said that it was my father who started this madness!!! Can you believe it?! Yes, my father is the original Sever nut, but it's been so long since I've seen much of that side of him. I'd almost forgotten that it existed. Too funny!

This leads me to ask: What other fun things could you do in an elevator? Preferably a crowded one. When I was in college, there was a group of us music students who all had to take the same German class. Since the German class took place across the campus from the music building, we would all walk over in a big herd. On the way, we had to take an elevator. These were particularly OLD elevators, and they frankly scared me. To make it even worse, we would all cram in the elevator and jump simultaneously, every time. So, what could you do in a crowded elevator for fun? Have a coughing fit. Scratch like crazy... develop some sort of a twitch... talk to the invisible man next to you, maybe ask him if he smells smoke... Isn't there a Monty Python sketch about this? I'll have to look it up one of these days. An elevator would be a fun place to play terrets! You could rock back and forth, nervously muttering to yourself about bombs. Well, I've got to run. More later.

So There, John!

Yes, it's true, I have a ginormous crush on Edna (aka Michael Ball)! (Yes, that picture is of him.)

John is a Pants Peer, and So are You!

Pre-Dawn Goofiness

Since the arrival of Clayton, (and with school being out) our bedtime routine has been somewhat buggered up. Justice has been allowed to sleep in Ross and Mark's bedroom, and on the couch many a time lately. In fact he's slept out of his own room more often than in lately. Last night, I decided it was high time to get back to some normalcy. I read him a story and tucked him into his own bed. All went well, he took his glow worm and a truck to bed with him. When he was picking out the truck from his toy box, he pointed out that there was a car from Mark's room in his box. So, after a kiss good night, I shut the door, and went downstairs. A minute later, I heard Justice calling "Go downstairs...Go downstairs!!" I felt a pang of sympathy, the poor boy has had his world changed, and he's gotten out of the habit of sleeping by himself, in his room. I went upstairs with the intention to snuggle with him for a little while. He met me at his door, handed me Mark's car, said "Goes downstairs!" shut the door in my face, and called out "Love you Mommy!" My little boy has inherited a bit of my OCD, I'm afraid. He didn't want to be comforted, he just wanted to make sure Mark's car was put away properly.

I expect Clayton, to keep me up a bit during the night, but last night Justice joined in the fun. Between the two of them, I didn't sleep at all from about 3:30 to almost 6:00 am. Justice woke up just after Clayton's 3:30 feeding, around 4:00. He came into my room with something that I swear was glowing faintly. It turned out to be a hard boiled egg. He was eating it shell and all. Do hard boiled eggs glow? I certainly would call you crazy if you said so, but I swear, the thing was glowing slightly. Weird. Maybe it was just reflecting moonlight or something. Weird, weird, weird. I'm going to have to take an egg into a dark closet to see if it glows now. I took Justice into the living room and tried to coax him into sleep by laying down with him. It didn't work, he mainly rolled around and booty bounced on my head for an hour or so, until Clayton woke up and wanted me again. Then Justice got up and went into the kitchen for a drink of water. I could hear him messing around in there the whole time I was feeding Clayton. I figured he was in there eating the chocolate cake that was sitting on the counter top. I was prepared to walk in there and clean up chocolate frosting from off of everything. I was therefore surprised to find him dry-wall mudding. He had somehow managed to get the lid off of the mud, and he went to work. He actually didn't do a horrible job either. He got out all of the right tools for the job, and kept the mud on all of the appropriate walls. He saved the chocolate cake mess for later on in the morning. Funny boy.

Caught Red Handed