Beautiful

I don't really have anything in common with the late John Lennon. Well, except two things: He loved music, I love music. He loved his boys, I love my boys. I love them so much it hurts sometimes.

I enjoy "Beautiful Boy (Darling Boy)" -- I can relate to the hopes and dreams John Lennon had for his son, which he expressed so beautifully in this song. I remember my own parents comforting me after I'd have a nightmare, and now I do the same for my own children. It's pretty universal, this desire parents have to help their children feel safe, and the hopes they have that their children will grow to be beautiful adults. And yes, there is a lot of prayer involved.

Beautiful Boy (Darling Boy)

Close your eyes,
Have no fear.
The monster's gone,
He's on the run and your daddy's here.

Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful,
Beautiful boy.
Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful,
Beautiful boy.

Before you go to sleep,
Say a little prayer.
Every day, in every way,
It's getting better and better.

Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful,
Beautiful boy.
Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful,
Beautiful boy.

Out on the ocean, sailing away,
I can hardly wait
To see you come of age.
But I guess we'll both just have to be patient,
'Cause it's a long way to go,
A hard row to hoe.
Yes, it's a long way to go,
But in the meantime...

Before you cross the street,
Take my hand.
Life is what happens to you
While you're busy making other plans.

Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful,
Beautiful boy.
Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful,
Beautiful boy.

Before you go to sleep,
Say a little prayer.
Every day, in every way,
It's getting better and better.

Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful,
Beautiful boy.
Darling, darling, darling,
Darling Sean.

Conversations

Here are a few of the conversations that I heard in our car and hotel room when we went on a mini-vacation to Disneyland back in January. I wrote these down on the hotel stationery, but then lost the paper and forgot about them. I found the paper the other day, so here's a sampling of the types of conversations I am subjected to on a regular basis:

Tim (after going for a run): Anyone want to wear my sweaty hat?
Parker: Not me.
Jack: Not me.
Luke: I want to, Daddy! I do! I do!
Luisa: That's just gross. Don't you dare put that sweaty hat on Luke.

Parker: Ugh, Luke farted on me! Why does he always have to fart on me?
Tim: Because he knows you are about to harass him.
Luisa: Luke, don't fart on your brother.

Parker: I need some Weird Al on my iPod.
Jack: Me, too.

Yeah, I'm the only female in this house.

Conversation

Luke: Mommy, are you a droid?
Me: No, Luke, I'm not a droid! I'm your mommy.
Luke: No, Mommy, you are a droid. You are a bad guy!

That kid watches way too much Star Wars.

Photo-A-Rama

This is one of the views from our yard. I wish I had a really good camera that was capable of capturing the beauty of the Sierra Nevada mountains. They regularly take my breath away.

This is the hill across the street from our house. That white stuff is snow! I have never seen the snow come down that low, and we've lived here for 7 1/2 years. I loved how low the clouds were, also.

Somebody please shoot me if I ever take our views for granted.

These were Jack's Valentines for his 3rd grade class. I melted semi-sweet chocolate chips for dipping the strawberries. It was ridiculously easy. For the first batch, I melted the chocolate in a stainless steel bowl over a pot of boiling water. Then I tried melting the chocolate in the microwave -- it was faster and easier. I didn't notice any difference in how the chocolate looked or tasted, so I'll probably just use the microwave for this in the future.

Jack's birthday party was on Thursday (12 February). It was very low-key. He invited his friends Cole, Mason, Grant, Logan, and Nate over. They ate pizza and chocolate cake. They played on the XBox 360. They watched a movie. They wore silly Bert and Ernie party hats. (I bought those hats for Luke -- the older boys saw them and wanted to wear them. Silly boys.) I think they all had a good time, and the older boys were sweet to let Luke hang out with them. (Parker went to a friend's house that night.) Anyway, Jack's party was a slumber party, but we aren't sure how much slumbering actually took place.

Costumes

I've been going through the pictures on our computer and I came across several pictures of the kids wearing costumes. Like I've mentioned, I have not been very good at journaling over the last 15 1/2 years, so I am now playing catch up. This blog is most likely also going to end up being a scrapbook of sorts, because (let's be honest here) I am probably never going to scrapbook.

Parker and his best friend, Daniel, were luchadores for Halloween when they were in 6th grade (2007). I stayed up all night sewing Parker's cape and mask. Admittedly, I didn't start sewing his costume until really late on October 30th, and I was freestyling it because I didn't have a pattern, but also, I'm just not a great seamstress. My seam ripper and I got really well-acquainted that night.

Jack was a caveman that year. I sewed his Flintstones get-up out of faux fur from JoAnn's Fabrics. Next, our family consumed an entire bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken. Tim then cleaned and sterilized the chicken bones, drilled holes through them, and strung them together for a lovely prehistoric-looking necklace. (For the record, I am not a fan of KFC, but we needed the bones, and we needed them fast. Desperate times called for desperate measures.) I think that necklace was Jack's favorite part of the costume. He went to the school and told everybody that it was made out of real bones. When I went up to the school for the costume parade, several teachers and parents came up to me and said, "So, we hear you guys made Jack's necklace out of real bones." Apparently, Jack gave them all an in-depth description of exactly how it was made. He was very proud of his necklace.

After making Parker and Jack's costumes, I was too tired to do much in the way of a costume for Luke. We ended up putting some temporary tattoos on his arms so that he could be a "street tough," although I don't know many street toughs who still use pacifiers. (Well, I guess I don't know many street toughs, period.) I don't know if you can tell, but in that first picture, Luke's got his pacifier in his mouth. It's a dark-colored pacificer, so it blends in with his beard and mustache. Tim was in charge of drawing the face and body hair on Luke and Jack because I was too tired to operate an eyebrow pencil by that time. Maybe Tim was also too tired, because Luke's eyebrows looked a little wonky.

Good times...

Dirty

Here are some pictures that Tim took of Parker and Jack a few years ago when we lived at our old house. I had forgotten all about them until yesterday, when I came across them on our computer. I remember when these pictures were taken -- I was inside cleaning the house and Tim came in and said, "Luisa, you have to come outside and look at your boys." I knew when I heard those words that I was going to find a huge mess of some kind. This is what I found:

Maybe they were having some kind of spa treatment. Whatever they were doing, the boys took those shorts all the way to Tide Country.