Tuesday, November 18, 2008

Ferocious



Yes, this is the terrible man-eater, “Miss Priss.” She barks her brains out at every living soul, but thankfully, she doesn't bite. One step toward her and she runs away. She's 3.5 pounds of BARK! I can't believe she will be one-year-old in February. The kids love this puppy, even though Travis and I agree that she is highly annoying. Lacey adores her and she is our sweet “puppy doodles.” I had to post this photo. She looks like she could bite your head off, when really a big toe would be more than she could handle!

Wednesday, November 12, 2008

"Caleb"ology 101

Caleb has always been full of “one-liners.” He has always used words and came up “Calebisms” like no other child I've ever been around. His teacher even told me that if someone doesn't know the meaning of a word in their class, she tells them to go ask Caleb. Recently, however, we had a class project that involved lots of unfamiliar words. He had to create a family totem pole. He had to choose an animal to represent each member of his family to put on the pole. The sheet of animals he had to choose from also had very elaborate descriptions of each animal, thus, the long words. The sheet read more like a horoscope. Well, Caleb had chosen an animal/insect for everyone and had to make index cards to describe each choice. The cards would be read aloud in class. Caleb promptly began copying, one for word, the descriptions from the sheet onto his cards. He kept stopping to ask my help because he couldn't pronounce or didn't know the meaning of a word. To make a long story short, Caleb was beyond frustrated. After all, “words” are his thing. I encouraged him to stop copying and put things into his on words. Overjoyed he said, “Yup, I write my own stuff, I know what all the words mean.” I had this quote on my blog so I could remember to blog the story. I'm so glad he decided to stop copying. Caleb said I was the “Bee” and one of the bee descriptive words was, “fertile.” Yes, he was about to tell his entire class that his mother, the bee, was fertile. Geesh. Thank goodness he stopped copying! I'll post totem pole photos when we get his project back.

Caleb and I have also talked about a poster hanging in his classroom at school. It reads, “Courage is doing the right thing when everyone around you is doing the wrong thing.” Caleb informed me that this was the word “testimony” could replace “courage” and the poster would still be correct. I think he's right. We really see how strong our testimony is when we make the decision to follow or not follow the crowd. It's easy not to drink alcohol, dress immodestly, when none of our friends are doing it. Caleb is my introspective child. He's always thinking. I just hope he keeps talking to his old mother, I still have a lot to learn from him!

Monday, November 10, 2008

I love it when....

-- When I'm driving down the road and a gust of wind blows leaves on the windshield.

-- When my boys kiss me goodbye when they leave for school.

-- When all the laundry is clean and folded. Ahhhhh....

-- When Travis doesn't have to work late.

-- When I get a "miss you" note in the mail.

There is so much I love! This list could go on and on forever. I've come to a point in my life where I'm just plain happy! I don't let things get to me nearly as much as I used to. I really believe that, "we see things are WE are, not as they are." We make our own happiness or our own misery. We interpret things based on our own temperaments. No, every day can't be perfectly peachy but WE control our attitudes. So, what do you love?